for oil and unguents.

_Technical Processes_.--Though the Greeks succeeded in making pottery
of a very high order from the point of view of form and decoration,
the technical processes remained throughout of the most
elementary--for glaze was not used at all, the colour was of the
simplest, and the temperature at which the ware was fired was not high
enough to introduce any serious difficulties. As we should expect, it
is possible to trace a gradual improvement in the technical processes
in the direction of greater precision and refinement, for no
vase-painter of the best period could have achieved his decorative
triumphs on wares so coarse in substance and so rough in finish as
those that satisfied his predecessors. As in every other case
technical and artistic refinement went hand in hand. In the earliest
times the clay was used with very little preparation; at all events
before the introduction of the potter's wheel the finish is not to be
compared with that of the early races in Egypt. As the practice
developed no doubt, specially good clays were found in certain
districts, and these became centres of manufacture or the clays were
carried to other established centres. The primitive wares usually
exhibit the natural buff, yellow, grey or brownish colours of other
elementary pottery, and the surface is somewhat rough and possesses no
gloss. Thenceforward it becomes appreciably warmer in tone as it
becomes finer in texture, until it reaches its perfection in the
glowing orange, inclining to red, of the best Attic vases of the 5th
century B.C. In the vases of the later Italian centres the colour
again reverts to a paler hue.

The clay for the potter was doubtless prepared by a system of
sedimentation, so as to get rid of all coarse particles. It was mixed
with water and decanted into a series of vats so that ultimately fine
clay of two or three grades was obtained. Both red and whitish clays
were used, and the best potters gradually discovered that mixtures of
different clays gave the best results. The clay for the Athenian vases
was obtained from Cape Kolias in Attica; and as it did not burn to a
very warm tone, ruddle or red ochre (_rubrica_) was added to it to
produce the lovely deep orange glow that distinguishes the best vases.
Corinth, Cnidus, Samos and other places were also famous for their
clays, and at the first named tablets have been fo