Part the First: Functional Art from the Enigmatic Daunians .  William Morris famously wrote, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”  Of course, his beauty in response to the immiseration of the working class was for the English rich but nothing is perfect.  Our old house is filled with books (my much better half is an indulgent, very patient woman), recycled furniture well made in North Carolina before the Neoliberal Dispensation, and functional pottery produced by local artists.  We are nearing capacity for books but there is always room for more pottery.  While catching up the other day I came upon Daunian kyathos: A 2,700-year-old ceramic cup from Italy decorated with an exuberant-looking, bug-eyed fellow .  Indeed, bug-eyed and beautiful: Centuries before the Romans took over southern Italy, the heel of the peninsula was occupied by the Daunians , whose unique pottery and grave markers are some of the only remains of this…