The earliest glazed vases were made with the hand, but the wheel was an invention of very remote antiquity, as has been noted in our Introductory Chapter. It is generally supposed that its origin is to be attributed to Egypt. Its introduction into Greece may easily be traced by a study of primitive pottery from any site such as Crete, Cyprus, or Troy, where the distinction between hand-made and wheel-made vessels is clear. Thus in the tombs of Cyprus which belong to the Bronze Age, the earlier finds, dating from about 2500–1500 B.C., are exclusively of hand-made pottery.[750] The latter part of the Bronze Age may be regarded as a transitional period, in which the tombs contain hand-made unglazed painted vases, together with pottery of a much more developed character, with a lustrous yellow glaze, bearing unmistakable evidence of having been turned on a wheel. This pottery appears to be largely imported, as opposed to the local wares, which are still hand-made, and its widespread distribution over the whole of the “Aegean” area marks an important epoch in the history of early ceramics (see Chapter VI.). It covers the period from 1500 to about 900 B.C., and it is to this time that we may attribute the general use of the potter’s wheel in Greece, although it was known even earlier, as some isolated specimens prove. Among the Greeks there were many contending claims for the honour of having invented the potter’s wheel. Tradition attributed it to various personages, such as Daedalos,[751] or his nephew and rival Talos[752]; Hyperbios of Corinth[753]; Koroibos of Athens; and Anacharsis the Scythian.[754] Kritias, the comic poet, claimed the invention for Athens—“that city which ... invented pottery, the famous offspring of the wheel, of earth, and of fire.”[755] There is also a familiar allusion to it in Homer,[756] which is a fair testimony to its antiquity:— “Full lightly, as when some potter sitteth and maketh assay Of the wheel to his hands well-fitted, to know if it runneth true.” As regards the traditions, even Strabo[757] realised their absurdity, when he asked, “How could the wheel be the invention of Anacharsis, when his predecessor Homer knew of it?” On the other hand, Poseidonios adheres to the tradition, maintaining that the passage in Homer is an interpolation.[758] Other allusions to the wheel are in the writings of Plato[759] and the comic poet Antiphanes.[760] [Illustration: FIG. 65. POTTER’S WHEEL (FROM A PAINTING OF ABOUT 600 B.C.).]