By the dining room in the dumps were found some classic items from the new city states of Greece.

The sanctuary of Perachora had belonged to Corinth, across the gulf. They knew how to make fine pottery there. By 750 the walls of a wine cup were eggshell thin, pale buff and covered with ruled black lines, reserved spaces for triangles, outlined lozenges, schematic water birds lined in soldier files. A tight and terse visual vocabulary. With carefully regulated techniques, using multiple brushes and a turntable, the potters had it worked out ñ there was little risk of spoiling the decoration as they painted.

And then, within a generation, they did something radically new. First, they made miniatures a specialty, particularly the famous perfume jars that were sent all over the Mediterranean. Second, they began painting polychrome figures free hand and incised details through the paint. At risk of messing up the design, the potters made daring displays of technical facility in tiny scenes of animals, monsters, men fighting, stylized flowers.

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Three Rooms - the fragments