A small but remarkable class of vases, which seem to stand almost by themselves, is that known as the Melian amphorae. Four vases of this type now in the Athens Museum[[1000]] were found in Melos many years ago, and were recognised as a separate class and described as “Melian vases” as long ago as 1862 by Conze.[[1001]] Since that time a splendid example has been added to the list, found in the same island in 1893[[1002]]; and to this must be added several fragments recognised at different times, including one from Naukratis in the British Museum.[[1003]] All the complete vases are large amphorae, about three feet high, but of elegant proportions, with two handles branching out low down on the body. The figures are painted in brown on a pale yellow ground, and enhanced with dull red and purple accessories, some of the details also being incised. In two cases the subjects are mythological, one representing Apollo with his lyre in a chariot accompanied by Artemis and two Muses[[1004]]; another the Asiatic Artemis (see Chapter XII.)[[1005]]; another, the one found in 1893, has the subjects of Hermes and Athena, and Herakles carrying off Iole. Deities in chariots are a typical Melian subject. The figures are of quite original design, in no way imitative, and the costumes seem to indicate a period between Homer and the sixth century. They may be roughly dated about the middle of the seventh.
They exhibit a combination of highly-developed Geometrical ornament with vegetable motives from the East and Mycenaean details, such as the spiral, which, as has already been noted (p. [294]), attains almost to a rank growth over the vacant spaces of the vases. The human forms are conceived with a remarkable degree of freedom. In general appearance they are not unlike the large Proto-Attic amphorae, but much richer and freer in style; they may be also said to approach the finer Naukratite or Rhodian vases, such as the Euphorbos pinax with its quasi-Homeric subject and lavish use of ornament.[[1006]]
The decoration is more advanced than that of the Proto-Attic class, the palmettes, for instance, being more freely treated. Riegl[[1007]] notes that the palmettes and lotos-flowers are derived from Egypt, but transformed and Hellenised, and that the spirals are not Geometrical, but are naturalised into plants. The characteristic arrangement of the ornament in long vertical stripes he traces from Egypt through Mycenaean art; it develops later into the plait-band of the Clazomenae sarcophagi (Plate [XXVII].). In brief, the ornament of the Melian vases forms a direct link between Mycenaean and Hellenic ornament.
An altogether new light has been thrown on this group by a large series of fragments of painted pottery found in 1898 in the island of Rheneia, which undoubtedly form part of the contents of graves brought over from Delos in 426–25 B.C., as recorded by Thucydides (iii. 104). They have been recently made the subject of careful study by Mr. J. H. Hopkinson,[[1008]] who recognised them as belonging to the Melian class, and identified parts of at least ten distinct vases. The scanty preservation of fragments of complete vases is, in his opinion, due to the fact that they had been originally placed outside the tombs like the Dipylon vases. Like the complete examples, they are characterised by their fine slip and brilliant polychrome technique, the system of frieze-decoration with Geometric ornaments and spirals, the free and spirited drawing, and their purely plastic forms, showing no signs of imitation of metal. They also bear out the isolated character of this fabric, in which all the vases seem to be on the same level of excellence, without any signs of transition at either end.
PLATE XVIII
Melian Amphora (Athens Museum).