The pottery of the megalithic people was of a simple type. It was all made by hand, the potter's wheel being still unknown to the makers. Pottery with painted designs does not occur outside Sicily, except for a few poor and late examples in Malta. The best vases were of fairly purified clay, moderately well fired, and having a polished surface, usually of a darkish colour. On this surface were often incised ornamental designs, varying both in type and in the skill with which they were engraved. As a rule the schemes were rectilinear, more rarely they were carried out in curves. Sardinia furnishes some fine examples of rectilinear work, while the best of the curved designs are found in Malta, where elaborate conventional and even naturalistic patterns are traced out with wonderful freedom and steadiness of hand. The pottery of the megalithic area is not all alike; it would be surprising if it were. Even supposing that the invaders brought with them a single definite style of pottery-making this would rapidly become modified by local conditions and by the already existing pottery industry of the country, often, no doubt, superior to that of the new-comers. Nevertheless, there are a few points of similarity between the pottery of various parts of the megalithic area. The most remarkable example is the bell-shaped cup, which occurs in Denmark, England, France, Spain, Sardinia, and possibly Malta (the specimen is too broken for certainty). Outside the area it is found in Bohemia, Hungary, and North Italy. Here, as in the case of the conical button, we cannot argue that the form was actually introduced by the megalithic race, though there is a certain possibility in favour of such a hypothesis. That the megalithic people possessed a religion of some kind will hardly be doubted. Their careful observance of the rites due to the dead, and their construction of buildings which can hardly have been anything but places of worship, is a strong testimony to this. We have seen that in the Maltese temples the worship of baetyls or pillars of stone seems to have been carried on. Several stone objects which can scarcely have been anything but baetyls were found in the megalithic structures of Los Millares in Spain, but none are known elsewhere in the megalithic area. There is some reason for thinking that among the megalithic race there existed a cult of the axe. In France, for instance, the sculptured rock-tombs of the valley of the Petit Morin show, some a human figure, some an axe, and some a combination of the two. This same juxtaposition of the two also occurs on a slab which closed the top of a corbelled chamber at Collorgues in Gard. A simple _allee couverte_ at Goehlitzsch in Saxony has on one of its blocks an axe and handle engraved and coloured red. There are further examples in the _allee couverte_ of Gavr'inis and the dolmen called La Table des Marchands at Locmariaquer.