uthern Italy, technique as in Class III., but the drawing is free
and often careless, and the general effect gaudy; subjects funereal,
theatrical and fanciful. At the end of this period vases are largely
replaced by plain shining black pottery modelled in various forms, or
with decorations in relief, all these being imitations of the metal
vases which began to take the place of painted wares in the estimation
of the Hellenistic world.

I. _Vases of the Primitive Period_.--It has been noted in the
introductory section that it is possible to trace the development of
pottery in Greece as far back as the Neolithic period, owing chiefly to
the light recently thrown on the subject by the excavations in Crete.
These have yielded large quantities of painted pottery of high technical
merit, usually with decoration in polychrome or white on a dark ground,
in what is known as the Kamares ware, covering the period 2500-1500 B.C.
(fig. 20). This was gradually superseded by painting in dark shining
pigments on a light glossy ground during the later Minoan period
(1500-1000 B.C.), forming what is known as the "Mycenaean" style. The
subjects, though chiefly confined to floral ornaments or aquatic plants
and creatures, are marvellously naturalistic yet decorative in their
treatment, often rivalling in this respect the pottery of the Far East.
In the latter part of this period this class of pottery was spread all
over the Mediterranean, and large quantities have been found in Greece,
especially at Mycenae, in Rhodes and other Greek islands, and in Cyprus,
where a series of vases with animals, monsters, and even human figures
shows what is probably the latest development of the pure Minoan or
Mycenaean style.

[Illustration: From _Annual of the British School at Athens_.

FIG. 20.--Minoan or "Kamares" ware, from Crete.]

[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Primitive black pottery from the Troad.]

Outside Crete the earliest Greek pottery has been found in Cyprus and at
Troy, with simple incised or painted patterns on a black polished
ground, the vases being all hand-made, and often treated in a plastic
fashion with rude modelling of human or animal forms (figs. 21, 22);
these cover the period 2500-2000 B.C. Early painted pottery, parallel
with the Kamares ware, has been found in Thera and in the important
cemeteries of Phylakopi in Melos. But until the general spread of
Mycenaean civilization and art in the latter half of the second