Under these circumstances the best that can be done is to turn to some more recently excavated site. At Rhitsona the graffiti are nothing like so numerous as at Naukratis. Still they are numerous enough to justify certain observations. Some 50 examples have been found[563]. All of them are on vases of the sixth century. Not one occurs on the numerous vases of the seventh century also found on the site[564]. Plainly in Boeotia the fashion of scratching inscriptions on pottery only became prevalent[565] in the sixth century. By itself therefore the absence of seventh century Greek graffiti from Naukratis would no more prove the absence of seventh century Greek worshippers[566] than the corresponding absence from Rhitsona proves the absence of seventh century graves. At the other end of the period Edgar has already noticed that “the practice of dedicating vases in the temples appears to have almost died out at Naukratis before the middle of the fifth century[567].” Edgar makes this remark at the end of his discussion of the inscriptions found in 1899. He is apparently thinking of inscribed dedications. Elsewhere, discussing the pottery discovered during the same dig, he mentions late red figure (_i.e._ about 450 B.C. onwards) as plentiful and black glazed pottery with stamped ornaments inside as particularly common. This latter ware dates from about the middle of the fifth century, but its main vogue is later still[568]. Unfortunately not a sherd of this latter ware from Naukratis has been published, and not a word is said as to its distribution over the site. It was customarily offered to the dead at Rhitsona. It may well have been offered to the gods at Naukratis[569]. There is of course no need to assume that the fashion of inscribing vases came in and went out simultaneously in Naukratis and Mykalessos. Boeotia was often behind the times, the Ionians of the seventh and sixth centuries generally ahead of them. But the Boeotian evidence shows how cautiously the Naukratite graffiti must be used for determining the date of the first Greek settlement. [Sidenote: (iv) The absence of proto-Corinthian pottery proves little.]