Even before the recent excavations pottery had been found in Crete which dated from the dawn of the Mycenaean period, and from the island’s early connection with Egypt was thought to be contemporaneous with that of Hissarlik and Thera. From the circumstances of its first appearance in any quantity at Kamaraes, in the plain of Ida, it has usually been named after that place. Dr. Orsi discovered two fragments of Hissarlik type at Phaestos,[889] also a vase of island type, one of Thera type,[890] and some early Cypriote wares.[891] Large numbers of fragments of this ware in the Museum at Candia were first noted by Dr. Orsi and Mr. J. L. Myres about 1894.[892] The extensive discoveries made by Messrs. Hogarth and Welch for the British School at Athens in 1899–1900 (see p. 60) have added still further to our knowledge of the ware; and these, taken in conjunction with Mr. Arthur Evans’s extensive finds at Knossos (1899–1902), have enabled a recent writer to draw up a tentative classification of all the prehistoric pottery of Crete.[893] In his paper Mr. Mackenzie divides the pottery into three main classes, which he distinguishes as Neolithic, Early and Middle Minoan, and Late Minoan. The first-named extends down to about 3000 B.C.; the second covers the period 3000–2000 B.C.; and the third (including Mycenaean pottery of the usual types) lasts down to 1500 B.C., about which time the Cretan supremacy came to an end, and the Mycenaean centre of gravity was shifted to the mainland of Greece. (1) Pottery of the Neolithic period is quite exceptional in Aegean localities; yet the evidence from the excavations is so unmistakable that there can be no question of its great antiquity. It consists of common household vessels of grey clay, hand-made and burnished; at first devoid of decoration, but subsequently fragments appear with incised patterns filled in with white. These, it may be noted, may help to date the analogous wares from Troy and Egypt. The black surface becomes more and more lustrous, and in some cases a sort of rippling effect is produced in the soft clay with a blunt instrument[894]; finally an age of decline manifests itself, but at the same time an advance is made from filling in hollows with white to painting in colours on the flat surface.