TUE SITCKSSIVE SETTLEMENTS AT PH YLAKOPT. 251

wäre in use and the stage reached by curvilinear design in the latest period
of the First City.

We must not however overlook the fact that at this period the parallel
technique of light design on a dark ground still continued in use; by this
time it had fully supplanted the old technique of incision. Thus, for examplc,
the vase XIII. 19, with its caricature of an early zig-zag pattern of a purely
geometric type like that of the similar vase, VIII. 5, may be taken as typical
of a style of design that was common in the last era of the First City.
The vase was found at H 3:3 in the floor-deposit of a house of the First
City, belonging to the serics that had becoine submerged at the close of
the last period of habitatiou. It was of course accidental that no complete
specimen of a vase in this technique with curvilinear motives was found, and
the fragments XIII. 12,15 may accordingly be taken as belonging to the same
period. There was still apparently a reminiscence of this house at a later
period, for some of the walls of an important house of the Second City
were built on to the stumps of walls of the earlier house.1

The inauguration of the use of matt black paint is to be assigned to this
period. One of the indications which enabled us to distinguish certain floor-
deposits as earlier than the gcnerality was the non-existence in these floor-
deposits of wäre with lustreless black paint, while its presence was a common
occurrence in the floor-deposits belonging to the period of general catastrophe
that ended the existence of the First City. At this period this lustre-
less black design-medium appears in contemporary use alongsidc of lustrous
dark glazes and lustreless white paint. There is no doubt, however, that for
Melian ceramics the introduction of this pigment afforded the true Solution
of the practical problem how, with the porous Melian clay, to producc design
that would really appear dark, if not lustrous, on a light ground alongside of
the lustreless light design on a dark ground. By means of this colour-
pigment the dark character of the design was attained at the expense of a
lustre that on the porous Melian clay was never brilliant. On the other hand
the durable character of the glaze enabled it to survive alongsidc of the new
medium.

This kind öf matt black paint, as an alternative to the older lustrous
glaze medium alongside of the lustreless white design-medium, is so
characteristic of the sueeeeding era, that in absence of evidence to the
contrary one would be tempted to make a division in development after the
catastrophe which submerged the floor-deposits of the First City, and
assign the first use of the new medium to the beginnings of the Second
City.

The evidence to the contrary is, however, decisive. In repeated
instances at different parts of the site wäre with design in this medium was
found in floor-deposits belonging to the final period of the First City.
Several of the speeimens figured on PI. XI. have to be mentioned in this
connection. Thus, for example, the twin-vase 12, with several other f'rag-

' See p. 3G, Fig. 22.