In Central and Northern Greece the only fruitful region has been Boeotia, particularly its capital, Thebes. This city, like Corinth, has principally yielded early vases. As has been shown elsewhere (pp. 286, 300), Boeotia was the home of more than one indigenous fabric, notably the local variety of Geometrical ware, partly parallel with that of Athens and other sites, partly a degenerate variety with local peculiarities, forming a transition to the Phaleron and Proto-Corinthian fabrics. The last-named have frequently been found at Thebes, notably the Macmillan lekythos in the British Museum. Signed vases of local fabric, with the names of Gamedes, Menaidas, and Theozotos, are in the British Museum and in the Louvre. On the site of the Temple of the Kabeiri, near Thebes, a remarkable series of late B.F. pottery came to light, evidently a local fabric, with dedicatory inscriptions and subjects of a grotesque or caricatured nature.[[114]] They are quite peculiar to the site, and seem to have had a close connection with its religious rites. Besides many examples of the Geometrical and Corinthian fabrics, there have been found at Thebes several specimens of the so-called Megarian bowls with reliefs, of the second century B.C.; the proportion to other sites is such that Thebes has been thought to be the centre of the fabric. Another local fabric is that produced by Tanagra about the end of the fifth century B.C., consisting of small cups, toilet-boxes, etc., with somewhat naïve outlined designs.[[115]] The vase-finds here have served as evidence for the dating of the terracotta statuettes, with which no painted fabrics were found, but only ribbed or moulded black-glaze wares, characteristic of the fourth and third centuries B.C.[[116]] Where painted vases have been found, the accompanying statuettes were all of an archaic or even primitive type.[[117]]

In excavations at Orchomenos in 1893[[118]] the French School unearthed large numbers of fragments, Mycenaean, Boeotian Geometrical, Proto-Corinthian, Corinthian, and Attic black-figured; Mycenaean vases have been found at Lebadea, and Thespiae, Thisbe, and Akraiphiae are also mentioned as sites where painted vases have been found.[[119]] Very few sites in Northern Greece have yielded finds of pottery, but the Athens Museum contains R.F. vases from Lokris, Phokis, and Lamia[[120]] on the Malian Gulf, and finds are also recorded from Anthedon,[[121]] Atalante,[[122]] Exarchos, and Galaxidi in Lokris, from Elateia,[[123]] Abae,[[124]] and Daulis in Phokis, and from Thessaly. Fragments of painted pottery were seen by early travellers at Delphi.[[125]] At Daulis the pottery was of Mycenaean character,[[126]] as also that from the beehive-tombs of Volo in Thessaly and its neighbourhood. A recent excavation at Dimini is reported to have yielded very early painted vases of a quite new, probably local ware, with affinities to the Cycladic types of Thera and elsewhere.[[127]]

Turning now to the Greek islands, we find somewhat more extensive and interesting results. Little indeed has been found in the Ionian Islands of the western coast,[[128]] even in Corfu, which as a rule has been fruitful in works of art. The only vases worth mentioning from that island are those found in the cemetery of Kastrades, in the tomb of Menekrates.[[129]] The contents of this tomb, which are all of an early and somewhat mixed character, are now in the British Museum; they can be dated from the inscription on the tomb about 600 B.C. Travelling round by the south of the Peloponnese, we come to Kythera, which has yielded a cup (now in the British Museum) remarkable for its inscription, ἡμικοτύλιον; it is illustrated below, p. [135]. Salamis[[130]] again has produced little, but some interesting pottery of a transitional character from Mycenaean to Geometrical has been found.[[131]]

Aegina appears to have been a pottery centre in early times, and recent discoveries are adding to our knowledge of its fabrics. Among the older finds from this island are a fine early oinochoe in the British Museum (from the Castellani collection), formerly supposed to be from Thera,[[132]] and several very fine red-figured and white-ground vases, notably the elegant R.F. astragalos or knucklebone-shaped vase in the British Museum, with its figures of dancers; a white Athenian lekythos, with the subject of Charon,[[133]] and two beautiful vases now in the Munich Museum (208, 209), with polychrome designs on a white ground.[[134]] In 1892–93 the British Museum acquired a series of Mycenaean, Corinthian, and Attic vases from a find on this island,[[135]] and other examples of Corinthian and Attic vases are recorded.[[136]] In 1894 excavations were made on the site of the so-called temple of Aphrodite, and yielded a number of early vases chiefly Mycenaean, Geometrical of the Athenian type, and a large series of Proto-Corinthian wares, some of unusual size.[[137]] Some of this pottery may possibly be of local fabric. More recently the excavations on the site of the great Doric temple (now shown to be dedicated to the goddess Aphaia) have yielded an extensive series of fragments of different dates.[[138]] Aegina was always celebrated in antiquity for its artistic achievements, and that it was a centre for pottery is indicated by an anonymous comic writer, who addresses the island as “rocky echo, vendor of pots” (χυτρόπωλις).[[139]]

Euboea possessed two important art-centres in Chalkis and Eretria. It is true that no vases have actually been found at Chalkis, but the existence of early B.F. vases with inscriptions in the local dialect amply testifies to the existence of potteries there (see p. [321]). Eretria, on the other hand, has been carefully excavated in recent years, and has yielded many antiquities both of the early and of the finest period. Among the former are vases of a type akin to the earlier Attic fabrics, but distinguished by the use of a “pot-hook” decorative ornament, and others more akin to the Attic B.F. vases, but clearly of local make[[140]]; among the latter are so many fine white-ground lekythi (as well as other forms) that it has been supposed that they must have been specially manufactured here as well as at Athens. The British Museum has lately acquired several white-ground and late R.F. vases of considerable beauty from this site. Many years ago an inscribed Corinthian vase was found at Karystos.[[141]]

The Cyclades.—In these islands we find traces of absolutely the earliest fabrics known in the history of Greek pottery, but later finds of painted vases are comparatively rare. Mycenaean pottery has been found in the islands of Amorgos,[[142]] Delos and Rheneia, Kythnos, Seriphos, Sikinos, Syros, Thera, and Melos.[[143]] Other finds recorded are from Paros and Antiparos (early fabrics), Keos, Kimolos,[[144]] Kythnos,[[145]] Siphnos, and Syros[[146]]; a remarkable Ionic vase in the Louvre, found in Etruria, has also been attributed to an island fabric, that of Keos,[[147]] and another at Würzburg to that of Naxos.[[148]] The chief finds of “Cycladic” or pre-Mycenaean pottery are those from the volcanic deposits of the island of Thera (see p. [260]), which, from the circumstances of their discovery and the geological history of the island, are supposed to date back beyond 2000 B.C. They are painted with vegetable patterns in brown on a white ground, and have chiefly been excavated by the French School during the years 1867–74; a few are in Athens, but the majority are in the Louvre or the Sèvres Museum. In the superincumbent layers Mycenaean and Geometrical pottery came to light,[[149]] and a fragment of a large Melian amphora with the so-called Asiatic Artemis, now in the Berlin Museum (No. 301), is stated by Ross to have come from this island. The same traveller saw here large πίθοι with painted subjects of early character and similar smaller vases, also some with black figures, in a private collection.[[150]] More recently (in 1900) excavations made in the Acropolis cemetery by German archaeologists yielded a large quantity of pottery, chiefly Geometrical in character, extending from the eighth to the middle of the sixth century B.C.[[151]]

The vases found in Melos amount to a considerable number, of different ages and styles.[[152]] Recent excavations by the British School on the site of Phylakopi brought to light large quantities, not only of Mycenaean, but of pre-Mycenaean remains, including pottery.[[153]] Mr. Thomas Burgon’s collection included many B.F. and later vases from Melos, now in the British Museum; they are mostly small and unimportant. Ross also saw painted vases in Melos.[[154]] The island is, however, chiefly celebrated for a class of early vases, few in number, but of exceptional merit, which have mostly been found in the island, and so are known as “Melian” amphorae (see below, p. [301]). Recently, however, large numbers of fragments of similar pottery have been found at Rheneia, opposite Delos, and it is possible that Delos was the centre of the fabric, not Melos, as hitherto supposed.[[155]] They date from the seventh century B.C. Among the finds of later date from Melos, by far the most noteworthy is the Louvre Gigantomachia krater (see Chapter [XII].).[[156]]

Turning now to the eastern group of Aegean Islands, known as the Sporades, we begin with Lesbos, where many fragments of B.F. and R.F. vases were found by Mr. Newton during his Vice-Consulate. From epigraphical evidence it seems probable that many of the early B.F. fragments found at Naukratis (see below) should be attributed to a Lesbian fabric, but this has not so far been established. Vases have also been found in Tenedos and Chios.[[157]]

Next we come to Samos, an island always renowned in antiquity for its fictile ware. The Homeric hymn to the potters is addressed to Samians. It was, however, in Roman times that its renown was especially great, and its connection with a certain class of red glazed wares has caused the name of “Samian Ware” to be applied indiscriminately but falsely to all Roman pottery of that kind.[[158]] Finds of pottery have, however, been few and far between. The British Museum possesses a lekythos of the B.F. period in the form of a sandalled foot (Plate [XLVI].), which Mr. Finlay obtained here. More recently Dr. Böhlau excavated some early cemeteries, and found a considerable quantity of pottery of the “Ionic” type, which enabled him to establish a Samian origin for certain wares of the sixth century.[[159]] Kalymnos was explored by Mr. Newton in 1856, but has yielded little beyond plain glazed ware,[[160]] and the same may be said of Kos, although the latter was famed in antiquity for its amphorae and culinary vessels. The small islands of Telos,[[161]] Nisyros, Chiliodromia,[[162]] and Karpathos have been explored at different times by Ross, Theodore Bent, and others, and have yielded vases of a late R.F. period, corresponding to the later Athenian fabrics, several of which are in the British Museum. Messrs. Bent and Paton have also found pottery of the Mycenaean period in Kalymnos and Karpathos[[163]]; and similar remains are reported from Kos.[[164]]

But all other discoveries in the islands are far exceeded both in extent and importance by those of Rhodes.[[165]] They are principally due to the labours of Messrs. Salzmann and Biliotti, who diligently explored the island during the ’sixties, and the results as far as pottery is concerned, extend from Mycenaean times down to the destruction of Kameiros in 404 B.C. The earliest finds were on the site of Ialysos, and these are exclusively of “Mycenaean” type. The tombs containing Mycenaean vases were cut in the rock in quadrangular form, with vaulted δρόμος and steps. This site was explored by the above-named gentlemen about the years 1867–70, and the results of the excavation, by the liberality of Prof. Ruskin, found their way into the British Museum. Their archaeological value was not recognised for some years; but when the discoveries of Mycenae became known, it was at once seen that the Ialysos pottery must fall into line with them.