LOS ANGELES, CA.- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a collaborative group of California scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), The Aerospace Corporation, and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) at Stanford $495,723 over three years to investigate the chemical and physical makeup of Attic pottery—long considered to be the pinnacle of ancient ceramic craftsmanship. The collaborative partnership received the grant as part of the NSF’s SCIART program which seeks to fund projects at the intersection of science and art. Attic pottery, the iconic red-and-black figure pottery produced in ancient Greece from the 6th to the 4th centuries B.C., required immense precision to produce, and the means by which craftsman created these vessels is still not completely understood. Led by Karen Trentelman, a conservation scientist at the GCI, along with GCI scientist Marc Walto