xviii Proceedings. S^MarcJi 8th, igio. 



As I have said, wood and clay were shaped by primitive 

 man before he began to use iron or bronze ; pottery is the easiest 

 handicraft, for few tools are required ; those who could mould 

 and shape clay were in the right way to make bronze statuary. 

 The artists of Samos were the first to run metal round a clay 

 model, probably about 600 years before our era ; but it may 

 have been anticipated by China, as they were far in advance of 

 the Greeks, and probably also the Egyptians, in pottery, and are 

 yet ; but the bronze age follows that of the clay if the right 

 metal is available. 



This pottery discovered by Mr. Myring has one remarkable 

 and important quality — 710 two pieces are alike. We see that the 

 ancient moulders had made one great step in human progress, 

 for they did not copy each other. There is individuality in each 

 figure ; the serfdom of habit and custom and tradition did not 

 govern their work ; such workers must have had intellectual 

 liberty and original genius, which might have made a great 

 future, but from some unknown cause that progress seems to 

 have been destroyed, and has left little trace behind. 



As I have stated, they did not copy each other, and they 

 did not make their plaster and clay ornaments from moulds, as 

 sometimes the Egyptians did, in producing the effigies of the 

 mummies which have the beautiful blue enamel. The artists 

 were the mere unconscious tools of the priests, and the Sphinx, 

 half brute and half human, symbolises the serfdom of their 

 art. The people were kept in obedience and terrified into 

 slavish subjection by huge stone monsters which filled them 

 with horror. Art was the exclusive property of the Machiavellian 

 priesthood, whose religion was the mere tool of tyranny, and 

 was divorced from all pretence of morality. 



About one-third of the pottery discovered by Mr. Myring 

 has been secured for the British Museum, and may be seen any 

 day in the cases in the porcelain rooms. 



The Sun God in Mr. Myring's private collection has a 

 helmet and a number of serpents with their heads at the outside 

 edge of the nimbus. 



