After the collapse of the Bronze Age, Greek pottery took a temporary turn for the worse, with the Subminoan and Submycenaean styles being particularly dowdy. Beginning in 1050 b. c.e., Greek pottery experienced a renaissance of sorts, with the creation of the Protogeometric style. This style, datable from 1050 to 900, is best represented by the amphora, a storage and transportation vessel with handles on either side of the neck or belly. During the Protogeometric period, these vessels were simply decorated with black paint on the bottom two-thirds of the amphora, and circles or semicircles on the shoulder. Other items decorated in this manner were the skyphos (drinking cup), the krater (a vessel for mixing wine with water), and the oinochoe (pitcher).
Around 900 b. c.e., the Greek painters began adding linear and geometric
9.31 Warrior Vase (The Art Archive/National Archaeological Museum Athens/Dagli Orti)
Motifs to their pots, ushering in the Geometric period of Greek pottery. Early on, these pots were still mostly covered with the black paint typical of the Protogeometric, but the necks and/or bellies of the various vessels were decorated with a variety of motifs such as the meander, zigzags, triangles, and crosshatching. Over time, the geometric designs spread out to replace most of the black paint, so that the pottery came to be almost completely covered with decoration.
During the eighth century, a new motif was added to the decorative repertoire: humans. In some instances, little drawings of hunters or warriors would adorn the exterior of a small vessel, or dancing maidens might grace a container. The epitome of this style, and of Geometric pottery in general, is the am-phorai (pl. of amphora) from the Dipylon cemetery in Athens. The most famous example is a 1.55 meter-tall belly-handled amphora dating to 750 (see Image 9.32). The majority of the body is covered with geometric patters; around the neck is a series of grazing antelopes. On the amphora shoulder is a prosthesis scene, in which a corpse is set upon a funeral pyre while men and women on either side of and below the pyre raise their arms in mourning. Such art was quite appropriate, as these large vessels were used as tomb markers.
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