re stamped from
moulds, incised designs being added to fill up the spaces. The range of
subjects is much widened, including scenes from Greek mythology and
oriental types combining Egyptian and Assyrian motives, which must have
been introduced by the Phoenicians.

[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Etruscan oinochoe, of black bucchero ware, with
figures in relief. (British Museum.)]

Thus the technique of the _bucchero_ wares is purely native, but the
decoration is entirely dependent on foreign types whether Greek or
oriental, and throughout the whole series the tendency to imitate
metal-work is to be observed in every detail, both in the forms and in
the methods of decoration. Some are mere counterparts of existing work
in bronze.

The last variety of peculiarly Etruscan pottery which calls for notice
is the Canopic jar, so called from its resemblance to the [Greek:
kanopoi] in which the Egyptians placed the bowels of their mummies. They
are rude representations of the human figure, the head forming the
cover, and in the tombs were placed on round chairs of wood, bronze or
terra-cotta. An example of such a jar on a bronze-plated chair may be
seen in the Etruscan Room of the British Museum (Plate III. fig. 65).
Their origin has been traced to the funeral masks found in the earliest
Etruscan tombs. From these a gradual transition may be observed from the
mask (1) placed on the corpse, (2) on the cinerary urn, (3) the head
modelled in the round and combined with the vase, and (4) at last the
complete human figure. The earliest of these jars are found in the
"pit-tombs" of the 8th century B.C., and the latest and most developed
types belong to the 5th century B.C.

The skill shown by the Etruscans in metal-work and gem-engraving never
extended to their pottery, which is always purely imitative, especially
when they attempted painted vases after the Greek fashion. The kinds
already described are all more or less plastic in character and
imitative of metal, except in the case of the Cervetri and Polledrara
finds, which have little in common with anything Greek, and exhibit a
quite undeveloped art. But towards the end of the 6th century B.C., when
Greek vases were coming into the country in large numbers, attempts were
made to imitate the black-figure style, especially of a particular
class of Ionian vases. Imitations of these are to be found in most
museums and may be readily recognized as Etruscan from peculiarities of
style, dr