The first attempt to classify the pottery of Cyprus, and to distinguish between the Bronze-Age wares and what are now known as the Graeco-Phoenician fabrics, was made by the late Mr. T. B. Sandwith in 1876.[827] Considering the comparative poverty of material at his command, and the state of archaeological knowledge at the time, his brief but illuminating monograph is a wonderfully accurate and scientific contribution, and, so far as it goes, his classification can still be accepted in the main. But the extensive series of excavations in the island since the British occupation, and the investigation of such fruitful sites as Salamis, Curium, and Kition, have resulted in a great advance of our knowledge of the subject. The elaborate classification made by Messrs. Myres and Ohnefalsch-Richter of the representative collections of the Cyprus Museum must for the present be regarded as final, and of necessity forms the basis of the succeeding description. * * * * * The pottery of the Bronze Age may be classified under two main headings: Painted and Unpainted Pottery. Of these the former is practically confined to the later tombs, and we naturally turn first to the unpainted pottery as taking precedence in chronology and development. Almost the commonest, and probably the earliest, variety is the =red polished ware=, sometimes plain, but generally ornamented with incised patterns or reliefs (see Plate XI., Nos. 3, 4, 7).[828] The polished surface, which seems to betoken a great advance in technique, was doubtless produced by means of a burnisher. In some varieties the surface is black, a result due to the action of smoke in firing. The commonest forms are a globular bottle with long neck and handle, a plain bowl, a cooking-pot on feet, and a two-handled globular amphora; besides composite and abnormal forms. None of these vases have any kind of base except the cooking-pots. The incised patterns, when they occur, are scratched in deeply before firing, and often filled in with white; the patterns, which tend to become more and more elaborate, consist of zigzags, wavy lines, chequers and lozenges, network patterns, and concentric circles. Ornament in relief is applied in the form of strips of clay, often worked into the shape of rude figures of trees, snakes, animals, or simple patterns. Many tombs and even cemeteries, as at Alambra, Agia Paraskevi, and elsewhere, contain no other form of pottery; but though these are undoubtedly earlier than the mixed tombs, the red ware in a degenerate form continues long afterwards. There is also a small class of =black-slip ware=, covered with a thin dark lustreless slip which flakes off easily. The ornamentation, which is seldom absent, is generally in the form of a straight or wavy line with a row of dots alternately on either side, either incised or in relief. The forms are much the same as in the red ware, but often seem to suggest metal or leather prototypes.