THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

PREHISTORIC REMAINS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. 55
the marked tendency to transcend geometrical schemes entirely,
and to pass over to (8) a naturalistic manner that quite prepares
us for the advanced art of the wall-paintings.
The Fourth Settlement. This like the third was a walled
town. The construction however is not so careful as in the
previous stratum. Yet the house of this the fourth (Mycenean)
town is an advance on those of the previous period.
"The highest stratum of all at is
Phylakopi characterized
by a survival of the principal species of pottery we have found
to be typical of the third settlement
alongside of other varieties
that appear for the first time,
and indeed increasingly in conjunction
with imported and, as
a rule, mature and even late
Mycenean wares, which never
appear in the third settlement.
The continuity with the third
city is apparent in the fact that
some of the most niatui-e types
of the third class occur in the
deposit of the Mycenean city.
Thus the Fishei'uian \'ase is
shown by its chiy to be native
Melian work. This chiss of
pottery is a hitei' of the
])has('
same te(;hnical skill evidenced
by the wall-paintings of the third
settlement, which thus survived
until the influx of Ahcf'iieati ait
finally \n\\
artistic endeavour at
an end to all iiati\c
Phylj'ikopi.
Nati\'e fabrics now tend U*
disappeai-, and Mycenean ini-
tend ninrc and nmic
[)oi'tatinns
to
])i-edoininat e, until at last
the\ hold almost e\clusi\c swa\' imported imitaled
in natixi' niati'i^ial mark the transition.
56 PREHISTORIC REMAINS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.
In the Mycenean stratum were found three bronze chisels,
a bronze two-handled vase, many fragments of a bronze bowl
with turned rim, and a barbed arrow-head.
The most important object was a statuette (Fig. 29) of
uncertain sex. This figure
"
obviously represents a very great
advance on the level of art shown in the marble and terracotta
idols. The striking feature is the almost exaggerated
tendency to curved outline shown here, as opposed to
the stiff
angular forms of a marble figure'."
Not less remarkable is " a terra-cotta boat of the ordinary
Mycenean fabric." The surface is creamy white, the details
being indicated in black glazed colour'-.
" To an early stage of the Mycenean period belongs a series
of terra-cotta idols, in the usual primitive types of female
figures, with the drapery indicated by stripes of reddish-black ;
one of these has the arms raised beneath the drapery."
Thera. In 1868 the French geologist M. Fouque excavated
some houses, which had been buried by a mass of piiniice in a
volcanic eruption. The walls were similar in construction to
those of the private houses at Mycenae and Tiryns. These
walls were carefully coated with a stucco of pure lime, and
painted with stripes and floral decorations in colours like those
of Tiryns. Few objects in metal were found. These were only
two gold rings and a bronze saw. Stone implements were found,
and hand-made pottery, though most of the fivigmeiits were
wheel-made. A curious chamber was found with the sloping
raftei's of a conical roof still in place'. This roof .seems to have
been supported by a central wooden pillar,
as seems to have
been the case in the side-chambiT of the Ati'eus tomb at
Mycenae. The pillar
seems to have been of wood and probably
diminished downwards, just as we find with actual pillars or
copies of them at Mycenae, Spata, and Menidi. The ceramic
art as seen in the pottery from beneath the pumice is superior
to that of the vessels Ironi
the 'Second City' at Troy.
'
Cecil Smith, Anniinl ,,j
Jhit. Srlioal, in. jip.
1>(; HO, PI. iii. Mi Sniitli
most kindly h'lit iiic the jilioto^'iiij)!! tVdiii whifh is taken thu illustiation licie
Kiveii.
-
C. Siuitli, Aninuil, in. ]ip. 22 H.
"
Tsouiitiis iunl Maiiatt, up. cil.. pp. 70, 2:57.