The _pozzo_ tombs usually contain a large cinerary urn or _ossuarium_, in which the ashes were placed after being burnt (Fig. 178).[2256] These urns are fashioned by hand from a badly levigated volcanic clay, generally known as _impasto Italico_. It is to be distinguished from the later _bucchero nero_ (see p. 301) by its quality, and by the fact that vases of the latter clay are always wheel-made. The clay is irregularly baked over an open fire, and the colour of the surface varies from red-brown to greyish black. It is covered with a polished slip, and there is no doubt that it was the intention of the potter to give the vases a metallic appearance as well as form. As regards their shape, they are of a peculiar but uniform type, with a small handle at the widest part, and cover in the form of an inverted bowl or saucer with handle (Fig. 179: see also Fig. 178).[2257] The ornamentation consists of geometrical ornaments incised or stamped in bands round the neck and body—such as maeanders, chevrons, stars, and dots—the incisions being made while the clay was moist. In rare cases we meet with painted ornaments in white applied directly to the surface. Besides the urns, which often almost fill the chamber, accessory objects in the form of common pottery, fibulae, and other bronze objects, spindle-whorls and amber objects, are found in the tombs. The common pottery does not in its character exhibit much advance on that of the Terramare. The difference, indeed, consists not so much in development of technique as in a greater variety of decoration. It has points of resemblance with the far earlier pottery of Hissarlik and the early Bronze Age tombs of Cyprus (see Chapter VI.), and there are not wanting evidences of commercial intercourse with and importation from the Eastern Mediterranean. But two salient features of the Italian wares are the employment of handles and the unique form of the hut-urn (see below). [Illustration: From _Notizie degli Scavi_. FIG. 179. CINERARY URNS FROM TOMBS OF VILLANUOVA PERIOD AT CORNETO. ] The clay is mostly of the same kind as that of the urns, and the smoked and irregularly fired surface shows that furnaces were not yet in use, but that an open fire sufficed for the purpose. The technique is exceedingly primitive, and the forms are simple but heavy. In the latter respect the striking difference in the inherent artistic capacity of the Greeks and Italians is already apparent. The latter never at any time displayed that unfailing eye for form which distinguishes the Greeks in all their products. The shapes include saucers like the urn-covers, bowls with a flat vertical or high-looped handle, flasks with long beak-like necks like the early Cypriote vases, bowls with small feet, jars with one or two handles, _aski_, and _kerni_, or groups of vases united on one stem.