highly developed, but even to trace a continuous development of Greek
pottery from the Neolithic age. This result has been mainly brought
about by Dr Arthur Evans's researches at Cnossus in Crete, but traces of
similar phenomena are not wanting in other parts of Greece. Whether the
race which produced this pottery can strictly be called Greek may be
open to question, but at all events the ware is the independent product
of a people inhabiting in prehistoric times the region afterwards known
as Greece; its connexion with the pottery of the historic period can now
be clearly traced, and in its advanced technical character and the
genuinely artistic appearance of its decoration even this early ware
proclaims itself as inspired by a similar genius.

The study of Greek vases has thus received an additional impetus from
the light that it throws on the early civilization of the country, and
its value for the student of ethnology. But it has always appealed
strongly to the archaeologist and in some degree also to the artist or
connoisseur, to the former from its importance as a contribution to the
history of Greek art, mythology and antiquities, to the latter from its
beauty of form and decoration. Attention was first redirected to the
painted vases at the end of the 17th century, though for a long time
they served as little more than an adjunct to the cabinet of the amateur
or a pleasing souvenir for the traveller; but even during the 18th
century it dawned on the minds of students that they were of more than
merely artistic importance, and attention was devoted to the elucidation
of their subjects, and attempts made to arrive at a chronological
classification. Two facts must, however, be borne in mind: firstly, that
down to the middle of the 19th century the great majority of painted
vases had been found only in Italy; secondly, that these vases were
mostly of the later and more florid styles, which, if artistically
advanced, are now known to represent a decadent phase of Greek art.

From the former cause arose the notion that these vases were the product
not of Greek but of Etruscan artists, and so the term "Etruscan vase"
arose and passed into the languages of Europe, surviving even at this
day in popular speech in spite of a century of refutation. Meanwhile,
the study of the subjects depicted on the vases passed through the
successive stages of allegorical, historical and mystical
interpretation, until a century and more