The Potter's Wheel 175 



It is plausible that the invention spread from Egypt or Crete to Greece, 

 and from there to Italy. 1 



The gradual dissemination of the wheel over Europe is vividly 

 illustrated by the fact that in every culture-area there we encounter 

 a primitive epoch of pottery-making, which shows no trace of the 

 wheel, but a rude hand-made process. Such is found in the earliest 

 stages of Hissarlik, the Homeric Troy, in Italy, central and north- 

 ern Europe, and in the British Isles. During the second settlement 

 of pre-Mycenaean Hissarlik (presumably before 2000 B.C.) we observe 

 the beginning of the use of the wheel and the covered furnace. Through- 

 out the Mycenaean period, pottery was turned on the wheel. The 

 Swiss lake-dwellers, though capable potters, were unacquainted with 

 the wheel. Likewise it was unknown in the British Isles during the 

 bronze period. 2 In the north of Europe, the potter's wheel appears at 

 a late date in the La-Tene period. Thus the assumption gains ground 

 that Egypt was the centre from which the wheel gradually spread to 

 southern, and ultimately to central and northern, Europe. 



In two areas of the Old World, accordingly, we can clearly observe 

 a diffusion of the wheel from one point, — from China to her depen- 

 dencies Korea, Japan, Annam, and Burma; and from Egypt to Europe. 

 India was perhaps another focus, as far as Sumatra and Java are con- 

 cerned. A direct transmission of the device from Egypt to India is 

 conceivable, though it is of course impossible to furnish the exact proof. 

 It is inconceivable, however, that the wheels of India and China should 

 be independent from those of the West. Not only is there a perfect 

 coincidence between their constructions and manipulations, but also 

 the culture-associations by which the wheel is surrounded here and 

 there are strikingly identical. The social setting of the wheel and the 

 concomitant culture-elements have been characterized above. The 

 wheeled cart, the highly-developed system of agriculture, bronze cast- 

 ing, and the affiliation of pottery with the latter, are features peculiar 

 to the same area, and absent in other culture-zones. Consequently 

 the presence of the wheel in the East and West alike cannot be attributed 

 to an accident, but it appears as an organic constituent and ancient 



1 Regarding details, see H. BlAmner, Technologie, Vol. II, pp. 36-40; O. 

 Schrader, Reallexikon, p. 868; etc. H. B. Walters (Cat. of the Greek and Etrus- 

 can Vases in the British Museum, Vol. II, p. 228) describes the medallion of a 

 kylix on which a potter, nude and beardless, is seated before a wheel; on it is a 

 kylix of archaic shape, the handle of which he is moulding. The question as to 

 whether the wheel was employed in Crete at an earlier date than in Egypt, or vice 

 versa, must be left to the decision of specialists in this field. 



1 J. Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements of Great Britain, p. 487; British Mu- 

 seum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, p. 43. 



