HIDDEN MESSAGES ON ANCIENT GREEK VASES. I am always happy when new archaeological finds are made, in part because it seemed for years that there was a presumption that most everything had been found.
This article by Rupert Millar on The Drinks Business blog reports that Italian scientists have used advanced photographic equipment to find instructions to painters on the bottom of some but not all Greek vases. While messages on vases have been found earlier, the newly discovered messages were instructions to the painter. It is thought that the potters described what scene they wanted. These messages follow a convention that the message starts near the mouth of one of the figures.
Why did it take so long for this kind of message to be found? It seems to be unusual. Only seven examples have turned up out of some hundreds of vases that have been checked. The messages were covered by paint. The first was hard to find; it was found only when a strong beam of sunlight happened to fall on the vase.
The scholars who have found the seven vases urge that the Greek vases in all the museums in the world be checked for instruction messages.