Ceramics

How old pottery really is, can hardly be told due to clay-vessels faiding to nothing when unburnt. First burnt vessels can be found from about 25.000 BC, at this time mainly figurines. The oldest findings of burnt claydishes origin about 15.000 BC in Asia, but it is considered a craft that has been developed in several areas of the world simoultainiously.

3 techniques can be found:

• Spiral layers, where bulges of clay are layerd over each other and then joined
• sheet-technique where large sheets of spread out clay are joined together (works very well for geometrically formed objects)
• driving technique, where vessels are driven out of a clay clump on a turning potters-plate

After antiquity until late medieval, ceramics were either formed from spiral layers and then driven on a slow turning potters-plate or fully driven. Only in late medieval times, the quick turning potters plate became the main technique of pottery. In Vienna, the main form of potteryproducts is made from graphite-containing clay and covered with lead-glasing.