The topic is Greek Pottery

Introduction

Many historians believe that pottery was first brought to Greece from the Anatolian region (located in modern-day Turkey) during the great settlement of the Aegean during the Neolithic period (6000-2900 B.C.). Greek pottery was not simply utilitarian, or designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive, but it also reflected the social and cultural values of the Greek history. Ancient Greek pottery was intended for everyday use as well as to be used for decoration. The ancient pottery provides people with important information about the Greek culture: such as the Greek Alphabet which consisted of only 20 letters, which are: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Si, & Omega. The Greek used pottery to also pass messages. They wrote on the hardened clay and the message was passed down (Aaron, p. 4-10). They would sometimes use the same pot for days writing messages back and forth. A large number of the scenes painted on the pottery illustrate the myths and legends of the ancient Greeks. Because of pottery's durability, it comprises a large part of the archaeological record of the Ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it, it has exerted a large influence on the understanding of Greek society. Each period has its own style of decorations. Although, Greek pottery was used to explain myths and legends, it also had many other uses. Greek pottery is famed for its range of uses, from large storage containers for oil and grain to small pots meant to hold perfumes to vessels used strictly for ceremonial purposes, as much as for the range of motifs, patterns and painting techniques utilized, or used, by Greek artisans.

Discussion

Comparison of Pottery

Proto-geometric Style

The vessels of the period Proto-geometric (see 1050 BC - 900 BC ) is one of the essential evidence on the beginning of the dark ages of Greek civilization.

In his later phase, during the twelfth century BC pottery Mycenaean (style "submiceneo") had showed a progressive impoverishment and schematization of the decorative repertoire: large areas are devoid of decoration, show the background of the natural color of the vase and decoration is reduced to bands of wavy lines drawn freehand, or concentric semicircles, or sets of rims, tabs, spirals, triangles, grids. At the same time the variety of ceramic forms is reduced to a few types (Richard, 1985).

Proto-geometric style pottery forms the Mycenaean pottery that became well-defined, with a clear articulation of the different parts of the vessel, and tends to become from globular to ovoid with a progressive tendency streamlining. Among the major forms are the ' amphora neck separate the ' oinochoe with trefoil mouth, the lekythos , the crater , the skyphos , the cup with a single handle and kantharos with two handles.

Geometrical Style

The style started in Protogeometric pottery Attic evolves developing their own premises in ceramic geometric style between the IX and ' eighth ...