Figure 18 Late Geometric amphora from the Dipylon cemetery in Athens; height 1.55 m, ca. 750 BC.
Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Inv. 804.
Source: © World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.
AMPHORA A large, two-handled jar for storage of wine, olive oil or other liquids (figure 17, 18 ,
32–4, 36, 45, and 61).Self-assurance and prosperity were becoming increasingly common features of the Greek world in the
eighth century BC, as a result of developments that took place during the Geometric Period and brought
about the end of the Dark Age. We have already mentioned the technological advance that enabled the
Greeks to exploit their supply of iron ore to make more effective tools and weapons. At about the same
time this technology was introduced, the population of Greece began, slowly, to rebound from the
devastating decline that had occurred in the aftermath of the collapse of Mycenaean civilization.
Increasing population is often accompanied by increasing prosperity, at least as long as the population
does not exceed the level that the resources of the land can sustain. We do, in fact, find increasing material
prosperity in the eighth century, as demonstrated by the magnificence of burials in Athens and elsewhere
and by the extent of Greek trade, both with the people of western Asia and with the inhabitants of the
western Mediterranean. The evidence for that trade consists, in large measure, of precisely the Geometric
pottery that has just been mentioned. By the end of the ninth century BC, we have abundant evidence of