Article discusses the technology of the graphite painted pottery of the Balkan Copper Age (5000 -- 3500 B.C.), significant because of its similarity to later methods of metalworking. Intensive analysis of the ware was conducted using a variety of equipment: kilns with pyrometers, petrographic and stereo zoom microscopes, x-ray diffractometer, electron probe, electron scanning microscope and an acid digestion bomb (for atomic absorption). -- AATA