With the Classical Age of the Greeks, a new chapter opened -- for humanity, for the life of the mind, and for ceramics. Here, geometric designs fill in the middle and borders, but within we see a light playfulness as this pieces shows a delight in things human and in the human form itself. Even Greek gods were made in the image of humanity, i.e., anthropomorphic.

This approach was new to the world. When other cultures had portrayed the human body, it was not with the natural, realistic features which were the hallmarks of Greek Classical art, but were rather schematized, or metaphorical -- like the Statue of Ramses II. Ramses is not 'real people' but a symbol of authority and divinity. His hair, face, body, expression, coloring all point to something beyond the person. He was much less important as an individual than what he symbolized. Compare Ramses to this bust of Pericles.

In a unique and creative way, the Greeks memorialized the famous saying that humans were the "measure of all things." They saw in humanity (and in the human form) a dignity, pride and power that no other civilization yet had been willing to grant.