The Potters of Thrapsano: A Modern Workshop with Clues to Ancient Technology (Video)

On Crete, the largest of the Greek Islands, potters preserve a tradition handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. On this beautiful island where the Minoans made jars 3,500 years ago, potters in the village of Thrapsano use a unique system to make large jars remarkably like their ancient counterparts. Join this tour of a Thrapsano potter's workshop where one of the few potters who still preserves this ancient tradition continues to make jars in the old way. In this unusual ceramics system, potters alternate between handmade and wheelmade techniques to build up their vases in sections. The traditional pottery workshops in Greece are almost all gone, overwhelmed by a wave of modernization and change. This documentary records one of the last surviving examples of a rapidly disappearing craft.