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But the different techniques do not regularly succeed each other; inventions are not immediately communicated from one locality to another; primitive methods subsist alongside of more advanced, nay even sometimes drive them out again. This much is clear, that a section taken through these contemporaneous prehistoric civilizations would present a highly variegated aspect.

The Stone Age is succeeded by the Bronze Age, here earlier and there later; here more quickly, there more slowly; i.e., metals are gradually introduced, and with them new techniques and a new civilization. It is evident that to the earlier Bronze Age belong a series of innovations which are of decisive importance for the history of vases, the invention of the potter’s wheel, the perfection of the so-called ‘varnish,’ and the imitation of metal forms in clay. In most places the potter’s oven and the painting of vases appear only in the early Bronze Age.

Into the early Bronze Age fall the finds from the earliest layers at Troy. In the unalterable faith that he was discovering the world of Homer, with the strong and weak points of a dilettante, Heinrich Schliemann began to dig at Hissarlik, and in the excavations of 1871, 1878, 1890 and 1893 Dörpfeld and he investigated the rubbish hill, which has become so famous, the nine superimposed settlements of which represent as many successive civilizations down to Roman times. The numerous ceramic finds of the five lowest layers show the transition from rude hand-made and ill-baked ware with impressed linear patterns to ever more developed stages. The potter’s wheel and oven finally succeed in producing brilliant red, black, grey, brown vases of the finest technique. The variety of shapes is very great, some are already quite developed; the imitation of metal forms is to be traced here and there. A notable speciality is found in the so-called Face-urns (Fig. ssss1), rude imitations of the human form, produced by adding eyes, nose, mouth, ears, nipples and navel; and there are also other vase-types, which are not repeated in Western Greece. Painting is rare, the vases are either monochrome or adorned with incised linear ornaments, which are often applied in the manner of necklaces, or divide the vase vertically.