3. _Hellenic period_, from 550 B.C. to 200 B.C., representing the time during which imported Greek vases are found in the tombs, native pottery gradually dying out except in the form of plain vessels. The pottery of the Bronze-Age period again falls into two distinct periods: (1) Copper Age or pre-Mycenaean period (2500–1500 B.C.), during which few bronze implements are found in the tombs, and all the pottery is purely indigenous, the work of the original inhabitants of the island, without any admixture of importations. (2) The Mycenaean period (1500–800 B.C.), during which the local pottery (including both unpainted and painted vases) is reinforced by large quantities of imported Mycenaean pottery, together with elaborately decorated vases of Mycenaean technique, either made locally or specially made for Cyprus and imported. The sites on which Bronze-Age remains are found (see above, p. 66) are chiefly confined to the central and southern parts of the island, the most important sites being near the modern towns of Nicosia, Larnaka, and Famagusta. The discovery in these tombs of such objects as milking-bowls and querns is an additional proof of the conclusion naturally to be drawn—that the early inhabitants of Cyprus were a race of pastoral lowlanders.[820] The tombs (see p. 35) are mostly pit-tombs of moderate depth, recalling in type the Egyptian _mastaba_, and burial is universal. There is no doubt that the art of pottery was introduced into Cyprus coincidently with the beginning of the Copper Age, which may be placed at about the year 2000 B.C. Although no bronze is found in the earliest tombs, on the other hand stone implements are absent, and the types of the pottery are identical with those of the later Bronze Age. It will be seen that it presents throughout very striking parallels with the pottery of Hissarlik, which will form the subject of the next section. The forms are largely similar and the technique is the same, but the Hissarlik pottery is ruder and of inferior clay. Stone implements are found at Hissarlik, but no copper, from which the inference may be drawn that that metal, being indigenous to Cyprus, supplanted stone there at an earlier date than in the Troad, whither it had to find its way by means of commerce. It was no doubt largely due to the existence of its copper ores that Cyprus so early shows an advance in its civilisation.