Fast potter's wheel
Torno de alfarero rápido
- Date
- c. 3100 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Uruk and Ur, Sumer, Iraq
- Credited to
- Sumerian potters
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Heavy disc on a pivot that spins at over 100 rpm by inertia, allowing vessels to be thrown by centrifugal force in minutes. It replaced the slow Chalcolithic turntable and is the first rotary production machine.
The slow turntable appears at Ubaid (c. 4500 BCE); the fast wheel becomes widespread in Late Uruk. Independent in China (Longshan, c. 2600 BCE) and the Indus.
What it led to
- Standardised industrial pottery production (the bevelled-rim bowls of Uruk, a ration measure)
- Potter as a specialised full-time male trade, as opposed to domestic production
- Ideas of axle, flywheel and continuous rotation applied to other machines
Built on
- Slow-wheel (tournette) potteryc. 4500 BCE
- Wheel and wheeled vehiclec. 3500 BCE
- Slow potter's wheel
- Solid-disc wheel
Made possible
- Industrial state bakery and breweryc. 2550 BCE
- Transport amphora (Canaanite jar)c. 1800 BCE
- Terracotta pressure pipes and flushing toiletc. 1700 BCE
- Chinese ritual bronze (piece-mould casting)c. 1600 BCE
- Wood lathec. 1300 BCE
- Rotary quern and donkey millc. 450 BCE
- Toothed gearc. 270 BCE
- Wood lathe
- Mass-produced pottery
- Flywheel