three-stage firings following repainting or as an attempt to correct color failures The technique which is mostly known as the "iron reduction technique" was decoded with the contribution of scholars, ceramists and scientists from the mid 18th century onwards to the end of the 20th century, i.e. Comte de Caylus (1752), Durand-Greville (1891), Binns and Fraser (1925), Schumann (1942), Winter (1959), Bimson (1956), Noble (1960, 1965), Hofmann (1962), Oberlies (1968), Pavicevic (1974), Aloupi (1993). More recent studies by Walton et al. (2009), Walton et al.(2014), Lühl et al.(2014) and Chaviara & Aloupi-Siotis (2016) by using advanced analytical techniques provide detailed information on the process and the raw materials used. Vase painting The most familiar aspect of ancient Greek pottery is painted vessels of fine quality. These were not the everyday pottery used by most people but were sufficiently cheap to be accessible to a wide range of the population. Few examples of ancient Greek painting have survived so modern scholars have to trace the development of ancient Greek art partly through ancient Greek vase-painting, which survives in large quantities and is also, with Ancient Greek literature, the best guide we have to the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. Development of pottery painting Stone Age Greek pottery goes back to the Stone Age, such as those found in Sesklo and Dimini. Bronze Age More elaborate painting on Greek pottery goes back to the Minoan pottery and Mycenaean pottery of the Bronze Age, some later examples of which show the ambitious figurative painting that was to become highly developed and typical. Iron Age After many centuries dominated by styles of geometric decoration, becoming increasingly complex, figurative elements returned in force in the 8th century. From the late 7th century to about 300 BC evolving styles of figure-led painting were at their peak of production and quality and were widely exported. During the Greek Dark Age, spanning the 11th to 8th centuries BC, the prevalent early style was that of the protogeometric art, predominantly utilizing circular and wavy decorative patterns. This was succeeded in mainland Greece, the Aegean, Anatolia, and Italy by the style of pottery known as geometric art, which employed neat rows of geometric shapes. The period of Archaic Greece, beginning in the 8th century BC and lasting until the late 5th century BC, saw the birth of Orientalizing period, led largely by ancient Corinth, where the previous