Another typically Boeotian form found in the same period is a kantharos,[999] also obviously imitated from metal and decorated with figures of animals or palmette-and-lotos patterns of a peculiarly local type. The style of the animals is, like that of the Gamedes vase, also peculiar and local; but both in decoration and technique these vases seem to reflect Corinthian influence. * * * * * A small but remarkable class of vases, which seem to stand almost by themselves, is that known as the =Melian amphorae=. Four vases of this type now in the Athens Museum[1000] were found in Melos many years ago, and were recognised as a separate class and described as “Melian vases” as long ago as 1862 by Conze.[1001] Since that time a splendid example has been added to the list, found in the same island in 1893[1002]; and to this must be added several fragments recognised at different times, including one from Naukratis in the British Museum.[1003] All the complete vases are large amphorae, about three feet high, but of elegant proportions, with two handles branching out low down on the body. The figures are painted in brown on a pale yellow ground, and enhanced with dull red and purple accessories, some of the details also being incised. In two cases the subjects are mythological, one representing Apollo with his lyre in a chariot accompanied by Artemis and two Muses[1004]; another the Asiatic Artemis (see Chapter XII.)[1005]; another, the one found in 1893, has the subjects of Hermes and Athena, and Herakles carrying off Iole. Deities in chariots are a typical Melian subject. The figures are of quite original design, in no way imitative, and the costumes seem to indicate a period between Homer and the sixth century. They may be roughly dated about the middle of the seventh. They exhibit a combination of highly-developed Geometrical ornament with vegetable motives from the East and Mycenaean details, such as the spiral, which, as has already been noted (p. 294), attains almost to a rank growth over the vacant spaces of the vases. The human forms are conceived with a remarkable degree of freedom. In general appearance they are not unlike the large Proto-Attic amphorae, but much richer and freer in style; they may be also said to approach the finer Naukratite or Rhodian vases, such as the Euphorbos pinax with its quasi-Homeric subject and lavish use of ornament.[1006]