=Crete= in all probability will, before many years are over, supply a great mass of material for the history of early Greek pottery. Until recent years it has received little attention from travellers or explorers, and few vases of any period have come therefrom into our Museums.[167] But Crete has always been looked to by archaeologists for the solution of the Mycenaean problem, and the systematic excavations now at length set on foot are even richer in their yield of Mycenaean and primitive pottery than those of Rhodes, Melos, and Cyprus. Mr. J. L. Myres found at _Kamarais_ in 1894 a series of fragments of painted pottery with designs in opaque colours on a black ground, which he regarded as pre-Mycenaean.[168] This theory was subsequently borne out by the discoveries of Messrs. Arthur Evans and D. G. Hogarth at _Knossos_ and elsewhere, which have been very rich in pottery of a similar kind, and also in vases with remarkably naturalistic patterns in relief.[169] Other finds have been made in the Dictaean Cave,[170] at Zakro[171] and Palaeokastro,[172] at Phaestos,[173] Praesos, Erganos and Kourtes, and Kavousi.[174] Before we turn our attention to the continent of Asia we must hark back to the European mainland, working round by the northern coasts of the Aegaean and Euxine Seas. Macedonia and Thrace have yielded scarcely anything,[175] but when we come to the northern shore of the Black Sea we find at _Kertch_, in the Crimea (the ancient Panticapaeum), a remarkable centre of Greek artistic production. The finds here are practically limited to one period, covering little more than a hundred years, and mainly illustrate the art of the fourth century B.C. There are, however, many magnificent vases, which in style, if not in shape or composition of subjects, must belong to an earlier time—namely, that of the fine red-figured period.[176] The excavations have mostly been undertaken by the Russian Government, in whose museum at the Hermitage the collections are now to be seen, but much was done unsystematically by Englishmen and others at the time of the Crimean War. It cannot be said that more than about one-quarter of the total find of 400 vases have any merit; they are chiefly small, with red figures, and of the later fine period; some are polychrome and ornamented with gilding.[177] The most remarkable by far is the vase signed by the Athenian Xenophantos (p. 447); but that with the contest of Athena and Poseidon (Plate L.) is also an exceptionally fine specimen; and others have interesting subjects relating to the Eleusinian mysteries. At _Phanagoria_ an early B.F. vase of Ionic style came to light.[178] Vases have also been found at Olbia on the neighbouring mainland, at Kief, at Temir Gora in Circassia, and on the modern sites of Blisnitza, Iouz Oba, Melek Chesme and Pavlovski-Kourgane in the Crimea.[179] II. ASIA MINOR