doors
seem to have been unknown in earlier times; only in few monuments of
later date (for instance in the wall-painting of a shoemaker's
workshop at Herculaneum) we see something resembling our wardrobe. The
wardrobes mentioned by Homer doubtless resembled our old-fashioned
trunks. The surfaces showed ornaments of various kinds, either cut
from the wood in relief or inlaid with precious metal and ivory. Some
smaller boxes with inlaid figures or painted arabesques are shown from
pictures on vases. The ornamentation with polished nails seem to have
been very much in favor--a fashion re-introduced in modern times. The
most celebrated example of such ornamentation was the box of Kypselos,
in the opisthodomos of the temple of Hera at Olympia. It dates
probably from the time when the counting by Olympiads was introduced,
and served, according to Botticher, for the keeping of votive tapestry
and the like. According to Pausanias, it was made of cedar-wood, and
elliptic in shape. It was adorned with mythological representations,
partly carved in wood, partly inlaid with gold and ivory, encircling
the whole box in five stripes, one over the other.

Locks, keys and bolts, known at an early period for the closing of
doors, were later applied to boxes, as is sufficiently proved by the
still-existing small keys fastened to finger-rings, which, although
all of Roman make, were most likely not unknown to the Greeks. For
doors these would have been too small.

The furniture of Greek houses was simple, but full of artistic beauty.
This was particularly displayed in vessels for the keeping of both dry
and fluid stores, as were found in temples, dwellings and even graves.
Only the last-mentioned have been preserved to us. Earthen vessels are
the most numerous. The invention of the potter's wheel is of great
antiquity, and was ascribed by the Greeks in different places to
different mythical persons. The Corinthians named Hyperbion as its
inventor. In the Kerameikos, the potters' quarter of Athens, Keramos,
the son of Dionysos and Ariadne, was worshiped as such. The name of
the locality itself was derived from this "heros eponymos." Next to
Corinth and Athens (which latter became celebrated for earthen
manufactures, owing to the excellent clay of the promontory of
Kolias), AEgina, Lakedaemon, Aulis, Tenedos, Samos and Knidos were
famous for their earthenware. In these places the manufacture of
painted earthenware was concentrated; thence