Geometric ware.
The geometric ware is for the most part adorned with painted patterns
only. Fig. 4 is a characteristic example, a small two-handled vase from
Rhodes in the Ashmolean Museum, the adornment of which consists in
zigzags, circles with tangents, and lines of water birds, perhaps swans.
Sometimes, however, especially in the case of large vases from the
cemetery at Athens, which adjoins the Dipylon gate, scenes from Greek
life are depicted, from daily life, not from legend or divine myth.
Especially scenes from the lying-in-state and the burial of the dead are
prevalent. An excerpt from a Dipylon vase (fig. 5) shows a dead man on
his couch surrounded by mourners, male and female. Both sexes are
apparently represented naked, and are distinguished very simply; some of
them hold branches to sprinkle the corpse or to keep away flies. It will
be seen how primitive and conventional is the drawing of this age,
presenting a wonderful contrast to the free drawing and modelling of the
Mycenaean age. In the same graves with the pottery are sometimes found
plaques of gold or bronze, and towards the end of the geometric age
these sometimes bear scenes from mythology, treated with the greatest
simplicity. For example, in the museum of Berlin are the contents of a
tomb found at Corinth, consisting mainly of gold work of geometric
decoration. But in the same tomb were also found gold plates or plaques
of repousse work bearing subjects from Greek legend. Two of these are
shown in fig. 6. On one Theseus is slaying the Minotaur, while Ariadne
stands by and encourages the hero. The tale could not have been told in
a simpler or more straightforward way. On the other we have an armed
warrior with his charioteer in a chariot drawn by two horses. The
treatment of the human body is here more advanced than on the vases of
the Dipylon. On the site of Olympia, where Mycenaean remains are not
found, but the earliest monuments show the geometric style, a quantity
of dedications in bronze have been found, the decoration of which
belongs to this style. Fig. 7 shows the handle of a tripod from Olympia,
which is adorned with geometric patterns and surmounted by the figure of
a horse.
[Illustration: _Arch. Zeit._ 1884, 8.