Native imitations of the Mycenaean vases, which have been described as “sub-Mycenaean wares,” have been found in considerable numbers on most of the sites where the genuine Mycenaean ware exists. They fall technically under the heading of painted white ware (p. 251),[844] the difference being that the decoration is in _matt_ colour (varying from black to red) on an unpolished drab ground. The patterns mostly follow Mycenaean models, but some are new. They are well represented on the Mycenaean site at Curium,[845] especially in one or two tombs of transitional character, and in some cases the decoration is of a distinctly Geometrical type, illustrating the development of the succeeding style. In any case it is not difficult to distinguish them from the genuine Mycenaean fabrics. * * * * * In these so-called sub-Mycenaean vases we can trace the best evidence of the transition from the Bronze Age to the succeeding or Graeco-Phoenician period. But on the whole the line of demarcation is clearly defined, as for instance by the forms and position of the tombs, which become larger and lie deeper; by the appearance of iron implements and bronze fibulae; and by the fact that all the native pottery is now made on the wheel. Relations with continental Greece are evidenced by the occasional importation of Geometrical pottery of the Dipylon type (as in the great vase found at Curium), dating from the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. As we have already seen, the first Hellenic settlements in Cyprus seem to have followed on more or less immediately after the Dorian invasion, in the sites of Salamis, Curium, Kerynia, Paphos, and others which afterwards became the capitals of small Hellenic kingdoms. On the other hand, the Phoenician thalassocracy, which began about the ninth century B.C., never had much foothold in Cyprus, less at any rate than was formerly supposed. Politically at all events the Phoenician influence was comparatively small, even in their settlements at Kition and Amathus[846]; we read of expeditions of the kings of Tyre in the tenth and eighth centuries, the object of which was to force the former town to pay tribute; but subsequently they were compelled by the Assyrian domination under Sargon to retreat westwards. In the seventh century a new power arose in the shape of Egypt, and in the sixth Cyprus became a tributary of Amasis.[847] Throughout, however, relations with Greece were maintained, and we read that in 501 B.C. the Cypriote princes joined the Ionians in their revolt against Persia, a fact which shows the strength of the Hellenic element.