red ware of Ballas
and Nagada (1), dates from the later Neolithic age, when copper was just
beginning to be used. This ware is very hard and compact and the face is
highly burnished. The red colour was produced by a wash of fine red
clay; the black is an oxide of iron obtained by limiting the access of
air in the process of baking, which was done, Professor Petrie suggests,
by placing the pot's mouth down in the kiln, and leaving the ashes over
the part which was to be burnt black. Both red and black colour go right
through in every case. All-red and all-black vases are occasionally
found, the red with geometrical decorations in white colour, and the
black with incised decoration. The forms are usually very simple, but at
the same time graceful, and the grace of form is more remarkable when it
is remembered that none of this early pottery was made on the wheel.
Pottery of almost similar technique was found in Crete in 1905 during
the American excavations at Vasiliki near Hierapetra. The general
appearance of the Cretan pottery is much the same as that of the
Egyptian, and the duller red and black decoration (which here has a
spotted or mottled appearance) was probably obtained in the same way,
the black spots being due to the action of separate fragments of the
baking material. This discovery is important in view of the probable
early connexion of the Cretan and Egyptian culture-centres.

A very similar red and black ware, usually of thinner and harder make,
and often with a brighter surface, was introduced into Egypt at a later
date (XIIth Dynasty), probably by Nubian tribes who were descended from
relatives of the Neolithic Egyptians. From their characteristic graves
these people are called the Pan-Grave people, and their pottery is known
by the same name.

Perhaps rather later in date than the early red and black wares, but by
no means certainly so, the second characteristic type of primeval
Egyptian pottery is a ware of buff colour with surface decorations in
red. These decorations are varied in character, including ships, birds
and human figures; wavy lines and geometrical designs commonly occur.
The whole _facies_ of this ware seems very un-Egyptian, and it has been
compared with the decorated "Kabyle pottery" of modern times. To call
the people who made this ware "Libyans" on the strength of this
resemblance of their pottery to that of the modern Kabyles, six thousand
years later, seems, however, rash. The prehi