gold ornaments, was by no means primitive, recurs in the whole of N.W. Asia Minor and in Cyprus. Its last phase cannot be separated in time from the western civilization of the shaft graves ([p. 7]).
Parallel with Troy II-V and the mainland civilization of Marina (below), on the islands of the Aegean is the so-called Cycladic civilization. Its pottery, however, presents a much more variegated picture: beside the primitive vases there are vases incised and painted with rich, not exclusively rectilinear, ornamentation: glazed (‘varnished’) vases also occur. The forms are very varied: bronze and stone vessels often serve as models; the structure of the vases and the distribution of the ornamentation show unmistakeably definite artistic intention. There is great difference between various islands and a comprehensive view of the development is not yet possible. Specimens like the beaked jug from Syros (Fig. [3]) are probably contemporary with the early Minoan style of Crete ([p. 7]), but the pans with engraved spirals, circles, ships and fish are later. On Melos, which has quite a separate position of its own, the influence of the Cretan ‘Kamares’ civilization ([p. 8]) in technique and decoration is obvious.
We return to the mainland and Central Greece. Hagia Marina in Phocis is the chief place in which a pottery, following on the Neolithic, has been found, hand-made with a black or red glaze, with or without rectilinear ornaments in white. This was called ‘Primitive varnish ware,’ before the Neolithic preceding stages had become known. ‘Marina’ ware superseded the Neolithic in Boeotia (Orchomenos) and Thessaly also; similar vases have been found in the western islands (Leukas) and in the Argolid (Tiryns). It is also related to the Cycladic civilization, as is indicated by the jug imitated from metal models, which is common to both styles.
The ‘Marina’ layer is succeeded at Orchomenos by a ware of a totally different kind, which probably spread from this locality and is therefore called ‘Minyan,’ dark-grey and grey or yellow vases, especially (a) drinking-cups, with tall channelled foot, and (b) profiled two-handled cups (Fig. [6]), turned on the wheel, and in shape more plainly even than the Marina ware dependent on metal models. The wide extension of this already finely developed ware combines a series of bronze-age sites into a chronological unit, the so-called ‘Shaft grave’ stage ([p. 7]). In Northern and Central Greece as well as in Leucas it follows on the ‘Marina’ ware, in Attica and Aegina it takes the place of the monochrome and incised ware, in the islands it supersedes the Cycladic pottery, in Troy it is parallel with the ware of Asia Minor and Cyprus, in the Argolid the Marina finds of Tiryns are followed by the shaft graves of Mycenae with Minyan vases.
Almost everywhere along with the Minyan ware we find vases not so finely constructed, generally hand-made, which are neither burnt dark nor glazed, but show a decoration applied in dull colour. This lustreless painting (Mattmalerei) in Central and Northern Greece, and also in Attica (white-ground ware of Aphidna, Eleusis), uses only geometrical ornaments; in the Argolid on red or light clay vases linear patterns, wavy lines, running spirals or even figured decorations (e.g. birds, Fig. 4) are painted in brown colour. The decoration generally emphasises the shoulder; the lower part of the vase is unadorned and separated by stripes from the upper.
The next stage is that Minyan ware and lustreless painting are almost everywhere driven out by Creto-Mycenean ‘Varnish’ pottery. In many places this process did not take place till the end of the Bronze Age, as in Thessaly, Central Greece and Attica (Eleusis). It was apparently
PLATE IV.
[Fig. 5]. KAMARES VASE FROM KNOSSOS.