Hispano-Moresque pottery is a style of pottery produced for the first time in a region dominated by Islam in Spain. It is characterized by a combination of Islamic and European elements in the period when Christianity was the main religion. By the fifteenth century, until the Italian Marjolica pottery industry developed in a sophisticated style, Hispano-Moresque ceramics were regarded as one of the most sophisticated and colourful ceramics in Europe and were exported across Europe. The industry was most booming in the 14th and 15th centuries. Around 711 AD, the Moors, an Islamic ethnic group living in northwestern Africa, conquered Spain and introduced two pottery techniques into Europe–glazing a ceramic surface with opaque milky tin, and making luster ceramics that imitates the metal surface by giving it a different color depending on the viewing angle. Hispano-Moresque ceramics are created by using both of these processes to glaze the ceramic surface twice and fire it twice.