The invention of the wheel is largely accountable for the more than 100,000 vessels that survive from ancient Greece.
The potter’s wheel, often referred to as the process of “throwing,” was invented around 3,500 B.C. in Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq, and it remains one of the most significant inventions of all time. The wheel’s centrifugal force allowed potters to create vessels with unmatched speed and quality, enabling the formation of thinner and more refined vessels than was previously possible with handbuilding techniques. The invention of the wheel is largely accountable for the more than 100,000 vessels that survive from ancient Greece. The complex wheel-throwing process used to create the famous Greek red-figure/black-figure vessels often demanded two or more sessions of firing. The objects were painted with a slip before the third firing—usually with scenes of war, agriculture, and ceremony, or abstract, geometric designs.