nfired, polished within and without, with no appearance of
narrowed necks or moulded bases. The next metre shows the beginning
of incised ornament, but in almost inappreciable quantity, and
the third and fourth metres show the gradual, but extremely slow,
growth of this species of decoration, the proportion of incised
vases in the fourth metre only reaching 3 per cent. The fifth metre
deposit, however, discloses one important innovation. The proportion
of incised vases is scarcely greater than in the preceding stratum,
but almost all of them have the incisions filled in with the white
chalky substance already alluded to, forming a geometric design of
white upon black. Along with this new development of the incised
ware goes a development of the unincised, whose surface is now not
only polished to the highest degree of lustre, but is thereafter
rippled in vertical lines by the pressure of some blunt instrument,
so as to produce an undulating effect, like that of the ripple
marks on sand. The rippling of the unincised pottery continues
along with the chalk filling of the incised through the remainder
of the Neolithic series, and, in fact, appears to have enjoyed
an even superior popularity. In the sixth metre from the virgin
soil indications begin to present themselves of the fact that the
Neolithic period is about to draw to a close, for some of the pottery
is beginning to assume the shapes which are characteristic of the
painted ware of the earliest Minoan period, and in the following
metre paint begins to make its appearance as a means of decoration
in rivalry with the incision and rippling of the earlier strata.
From this point, then, we begin to get into touch with the genuine
Minoan periods, of which, according to Dr. Evans's classification,
there are three--Early, Middle, and Late Minoan--each in its turn
subdivided into three sub-periods.

_Early Minoan I_.--The pottery of this period takes over in great
part the style of the primitive hand-burnished black ware inherited
from the preceding age. But though this supplies the greater proportion
of the material, it is not the characteristic feature. This is
supplied by the fact that the potter now begins to use paint as a
means for producing the lustrous black surface which his Neolithic
predecessor produced by hand-burnishing. A lustrous black glaze
medium is spread as a slip over the surface of the clay, so as to
produce an effect generally similar to that of the h