Many of these globular vases are unusually handsome. The polished ground is red or is varied with stripes or panels of the whitish slip. Over this ground the whole surface was painted black and then the lost color was employed to work out the design. The coiled figures were produced by drawing the lines in the lost color. The interspaces were then roughly gone over with the same pigment in such a way as to leave the figures inclosed within rather uneven black borders. The presentation of these ornaments brings me naturally to the consideration of a number of very puzzling forms which, if taken alone, must inevitably be referred to vegetal originals. In Fig. 181 we have a handsomely shaped vessel, finished in a polished red ground and decorated in the usual manner. In the main zone--here rather high up on the vase--there is a series of upright figures resembling stalks or stems with scroll-like branches springing from the sides. The stalks are probably the septa of the panels and the leaves are the usual reptilian symbols. About the widest part of the body of the vase is a band of ornament probably representing an animal. [Illustration: Fig. 181. Vase decorated with highly conventional life forms--½.] A still more remarkable ornament is shown in Fig. 182. The decorated zone of the vessel from which this is taken is divided into three panels, each of which contains stem-like figures terminating in flower shaped heads and uniting in a most remarkable way animal derivatives and vegetal forms. I am inclined to the view that here, as in the preceding case, the resemblance to a vegetal growth is purely adventitious. [Illustration: Fig. 182. Decorated panel with devices resembling vegetal growths, but probably of animal origin--½.] [Illustration: Fig. 183. Example of vase of unusual shape--½.] [Illustration: Fig. 184. Fig. 185. Examples of vases of unusual shapes--½.] In striking contrast with the globular forms just given are the angular outlines presented in the following illustrations. The first is flattened above, the body being much expanded horizontally and having a sharp peripheral angle. Upon the shoulder, occupying the places of and probably standing for animal heads, are two cruciform nodes, about which the scroll-like decorations of the upper surface are coiled. We see by this that in the mind of the potter a correlation existed between the plastic and the painted devices even in these conventional decorations. The second illustration represents a neatly finished bottle, with upright sides and conical base, upon the shoulder of which minute animal figures are perched. The painted design is nearly obliterated. The third example is unique. The sides are upright and the bottom is flat. The ornament occupies the entire surface and is divided into two sections or zones by a red band about the middle. [Illustration: Fig. 186. Double vessel with high arched handle--½.]