Olympic Games and Greek myths are things often
heard about in ancient Greece. This report is on the
astounding Greek pottery, something you may not hear
about very often. There are three parts to ancient Greek
pottery: How it was made, what it was used for, and its
history.
The first part of Greek pottery is how the pottery was
made. It was great for the groovy Greeks that they had the
wheel for their pottery so that they had both hands free to
shape the clay. After they formed it into the shape they
want, they would prepare the slip, a liquid, for decoration.
Then the vessels would be fired. The next part that comes is
the decorating. Some touches of color were added to the
pots after firing.
There were two basic styles in which the pottery was
decorated, the “red figure” method and the “black figure”
method. In the “red figure” method the figurines in the clay
were outlined allowing the reddish background of the clay to
show through the surrounding black paint. In the “black
figure” method the figures were painted in a black silhouette
and the reddish background was allowed to show. The
background originally is a reddish color because that is the
color of the terra-cotta clay. Any writing done on the potter
was done with a small round brush. It was common for the
vases they made to be decorated with pictures showing
historical events. In the end, after shaping, firing, and
decorating, the pottery was complete.
Pottery was created because the ancient Greeks loved
beauty. The Greeks discovered that they could make vessels
for carrying water, wine, olive oil, and for other purposes.
These creations were called “a vessel” or “a vase”. Ever
since then, potters have used the same shapes. They even
created terra cotta figurines of historical events, and these
vessels brought wealth to the Greeks.
The history of Pottery started when terra cotta clay was
found. Mythology and early Greek history was recorded in
pictured events on these vases/vessels. These designs
showed gods and goddesses as well as scenes from
everyday Greek life. They also showed geometric patterns,
floral patterns, men fighting, people driving chariots, scenes
captured from nature, or sometimes imaginary wild animals.
In the sixth century B.C., potters were famous for these
decorations. Pottery was developed on Greek islands and the
southern part of the mainland thousands of years ago.
Today, terra cotta pottery is sold in street stalls throughout
Greece.
Ancient Greek pottery was used a long time ago for
everyday uses, but today we treasure it as a rare and
important artifact.