Early Greek artwork lacks the refinement that is seen in the formal styles found in the later Classical Greek period, but themes begin to emerge that can be used to draw some conclusion about the daily lives of those that created it. The oldest pieces often employ an extremely stylized form to represent the world, and the simplistic figures are barely above the status of symbols, like one might expect to see in pictographs. In many ways, they can be viewed in linguistic terms and they can almost be read like a page.
For example, the geometric krater from the Diphlon cemetery shows, in two horizontal registers not altogether different from Egyptian hieroglyphs, the story of the internment of a figure, starting in the lower register with a procession of soldiers and chariots.1 The soldiers in the procession, traveling from left to right, are recognizable by the figure-of-eight shields and weapons. The upper register focuses to a central image of a frontal figure horizontally displayed above what is likely a bier.2 The form of the figures are nearly identical, except that on the second register females a denoted by having two small dots on one side of their bodies, believed to be breasts, and the central horizontal figure, a thin line from his upper thigh that represented his penis.3 From this depiction, it may be concluded that the Athenians placed an importance on the death of this individual, but also that death was dealt with using what appears to be a fair amount of public ritual, having such a procession of soldiers in addition to the attending mourners. The most important cultural clue from this piece is that the artist took the time to individuate the sex of each figure even though the primitive style otherwise depicted them as identical. The roles that the sexes are shown in seem to be exclusive, women in morning, and men in procession. This is not the first work to display both sexes nearly identically, but separated by artistic convention and role.
