The potter’s wheel was a major development. It could be considered the first machine invented by man. It enabled potters both to increase their production and to make more perfect items. The pottery guild started to supply a growing market.
The artefact was used in the near east 4,000 years BC. It must have been brought to the Iberian peninsula by the Phoenicians and Greeks, but it was the Romans who spread its use to the north and east of the region.