††Pottery is pots or other articles made of baked clay. The earliest known pottery dates from about 10,000 BC in Japan, and by 7000 BC potters in South-East Asia were beginning to fire pots in kilns.
At first pottery was shaped entirely by hand, until the potter's wheel came into use, probably in about 4000 BC. At first it was operated by hand, later by a foot operated wheel.
Fine quality stoneware was developed in China in about 600 AD and porcelain itself appeared in China between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, but it was not exported to the West until the 17th century.
