This is a collection of essays by distinguished scholars that will introduce the student or museum-goer to the study of Greek vases. Although the book is roughly chronological in arrangement--beginning with the appearance of human figures on Geometric vases, and ending with their virtual disappearance from Hellenistic pottery--it is not a history of Greek vase painting, or a handbook. It offers instead a series of suggestions on how to read the often complex images presented by Greek vases, and also explains how the vases were made and distributed. The volume is fully illustrated throughout.

The Etruscans were the creators of one of the most highly developed cultures of the pre-Roman Mediterranean.