Ripe Geometric potters continued to employ the old syntax of ornaments and shapes and made use of the well-defined though limited range of motifs which they had inherited. In these respects the vases of the early eighth century represent a culmination of earlier lines of progress. To the ancestral lore, however, new materials were added. Painters left less and less of a vase in a plain dark color; instead they divided the surface into many bands or covered it by all-over patterns into which freehand drawing began to creep. Wavy lines, feather like patterns, rosettes of indefinitely floral nature, birds either singly or in stylized rows, animals in solemn frieze bands (see Plates 11 -- 12) -- all these turned up in the more developed fabrics as preliminary signs that the potters were broadening their gaze. The rows of animals and birds, in particular, suggest awareness of Oriental animal friezes, transmitted perhaps via Syrian silver bowls and textiles, but the specific forms of these rows on local vases and metal products are nonetheless Greek. Though the spread of this type of decoration in the Aegean has not yet been precisely determined, it seems to appear first in the Cyclades, which were among the leading exporters of pottery throughout the century.

As the material at the command of the potters grew and the volume of their production increased, the local variations within a common style became more evident. Plate 12 illustrates four examples, which are Ripe or Late Geometric work of common spirit but of different schools.