The other red-figured Etruscan vases are far inferior, and are executed in a style which none can fail to recognise. It is dry and lifeless in the extreme, the drawing helpless, and the whole effect repulsive and disagreeable, as is so often the case with Etruscan art. These vases are not earlier than the third century B.C., and may be later. In them we observe, besides Greek mythological subjects, the introduction of local deities such as Charun and Ker. The British Museum possesses some ten examples of this class, in addition to the two already described. The most interesting is a krater (F 480 = Plate LVIII.), with, on one side, the death of Aktaeon, designated by his Etruscan name _Ataiun_; on the other, Ajax, designated _Aifas_, throwing himself upon his sword, after the award of the armour of Achilles. Another vase of this class has for its subject the farewell of Admetos and Alkestis,[2323] with Etruscan inscriptions accompanying the figures, and a speech issuing from the mouth of one of them. Behind Admetos is one of the demons of the Etruscan hell, probably intended for Hades or Thanatos, wearing a short tunic and holding in each hand a snake. Behind Alkestis is Charun with his mallet. On another vase found at Vulci[2324] Ajax is represented slaying a Trojan prisoner in the presence of Charun; and on the reverse the latter appears again with Penthesileia and two other women. On a third[2325] Leda is represented showing Tyndareus the egg from which Helen and Klytaemnestra were destined to be born; it is inscribed _Elinai_, the Etruscan form of Helen. The latest specimens of these fabrics, which have been found at Orvieto and Orbetello, positively degenerate into barbarism[2326]; the figures are carelessly and roughly painted, and white is extensively used as an accessory, as in the later Apulian and Campanian vases. The subjects are usually borrowed from the infernal regions, and the gruesome figure of Charun is common. Inscriptions on Etruscan vases are rare as compared with Greek, and in many cases have only been scratched in after the vase was made. There are also instances of imported Greek vases on which Etruscan inscriptions have been incised in this manner, as in the case of a vase in the form of a lion in the British Museum (A 1137, from Veii), on which is incised [FΕΛΘΥΡ] [ἉΘΙΣΝΑΣ], _felthur hathisnas_. The earliest known are incised on plain pots of black ware, and several of these take the form of what are known as _abecedaria_, or alphabets. Strictly speaking, some of these alphabets are of Hellenic origin, and do not give the forms of the Etruscan letters as they are known to us; but as the latter are derived from the Greek (western group), probably through Cumae (see above, p. 295) these inscriptions would naturally represent their original forms in Etruria.