Pottery History
Pottery shards have been found throughout the world, on every continent. There are debates about when the first pottery wheels were created to make creating clay vessels a faster process. It could have been anywhere around 800 BC or a thousand years earlier. Debates also abound regarding whether the first pottery was created in Egypt, Japan, or Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq and Iran). Pottery was pervasive in Roman cultures and Native American tribes as both artwork and functional cookware.By 600 BC potters had found that using tension could make the hand powered potter’s wheels turn even faster, leading to more pottery. Pottery benefited from the industrial revolution, when pottery wheels were modernized to include a treadle similar to that of a sewing machine. Now potters could use their feet to set the power of the wheel. Wheels also benefited from electricity, so they could set the speed of the wheel without manually powering it.Throughout the last few hundred years, pottery has been created by fine china manufacturers, such as Limoges, in France, and Lenox, in America, which feature both superior craftsmanship as well as magnificentdesigns. Individuals have also taken up pottery as a hobby to create their own unique dishes, bowls, vases, and other clay artwork.