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Part III. The Agamemnoneion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

J. M. Cook
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Extract

On Professor Wace's invitation I joined his staff on the Mycenae excavation in 1950 in order to undertake the testing of an area where Geometric pottery had been picked up in ploughland by the Mycenaean Causeway a kilometre S.S.W. of the acropolis. The soundings here reported were carried out in the first ten days of August at the place called Ayios Ioannis on the left bank of the Chaos watercourse, in a field which extends some sixty metres up from the causeway. On his plan of Mycenae Steffen marked considerable traces of ‘Cyclopean’ buildings a short distance back from the stream bank, but these are no longer to be seen.

The first probe was made at a distance of about seven metres to the east of the abutment of the Mycenaean Causeway on the south bank. A very rough terrace wall or substructure on an alignment north-east by north was found at plough level and exposed for a length of four metres; it has a loose stone backing something over a metre thick and is preserved to a height of 80 cm. on the face. The wall is bedded in gravel, and being at the presumed level of the top of the causeway may have had some connection with the network of roads that radiated from it; below plough level a little plain L.H. III pottery was found.

Type
Mycenae
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 48 , November 1953 , pp. 30 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1953

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References

1 Since the whole material was brought to Athens or study and re-examined after the different wares and vases had been segregated, it is certain that most of the large vases were in a very fragmentary state when they were laid in position. The absence of stratification in the archaic deposit is confirmed by the presence of later archaic wares (e.g. the lydion H 5, of the second half of the sixth century) at the bottom under the stone packing.

2 Δαμόσιος on the tiles, as opposed to ἱερός (administered by trustees), cf. Wace, , BSA XV 113.Google Scholar The demos is the Argive, and the remodelling of the sanctuary may have taken place soon after the settlement of Mycenae as an Argive κώμα in middle Hellenistic times (cf. Boethius, , BSA XXV 422 f.Google Scholar).

3 Cf. Wolters, , JdI 1899, 128 ff.Google Scholar on the louteria in the hero-cult at Menidi; Nilsson, , Minoan-Mycenaean Religion (1950), 603.Google Scholar

4 I have argued this view in the forthcoming volume of studies,Γέρας Αντ . Κεραμοπούκκου, 112 ff.

5 Hence also the scarcity of handmade monochrome ware, in contrast to the Heraeum, Argive (cf. Hesperia XXI, 202 ff.).Google Scholar

6 E.g. AH II, pl. 60, 19, the Tiryns shields (cf. BSA XLIII, pl. 18A), and perhaps the pedestal vase AH II, pl. 67 (BSA XXXV, pl. 52), which may be Atticising (as Karouzou, S.ADelt XV 48 n. 1Google Scholar) rather than Attic.

7 The drawings of all finds in this article are by Miss E. A. B. Petty.

8 Though rare in Athens (where the bridgeless double-arch handle of the Dipylon kraters was dominant in the eighth century) and in northern Ionia, the stirrup-handled krater seems to have been a recognised Geometric form in Corinth and the Peloponnese, Aegina, Ithaca, Euboea, the Cyclades, Rhodes, Samos, the Aeolis, Crete, and Cyprus.

9 It is perhaps a vessel of this form that is depicted, together with other paraphernalia of cult, on the sherd from the Heraeum, ArgiveAH II, pl. 60Google Scholar, 19b, BSA XXXV, pl. 26, 2.

10 For Argive Late Geometric cf. Mycenae: Schliemann, , Mycenae 103, pls. 14, 20 f.Google Scholar; JdI XIV 85, figs. 43 f.; Tiryns I 145 f., figs. 9 f.; AE 1912, 131 ff. figs. 1 ff.; Wace, , Mycenae, pl. 106Google Scholar; unpublished in Nauplia museum and BSA collection. Heraeum, Argive: AH II 117 f.Google Scholar, figs. 42 f., pls. 56 ff.; Tiryns I 114, fig. 45; AE 1937, 385, fig. 9, 389, fig. 14; AJA XLIII 434, fig. 22, 441, fig. 30; Hesperia XXI, pl. 50; unpublished in BSA collection. Tiryns: Schliemann, , Tiryns 95 ff.Google Scholar, pls. 16 ff.; Tiryns I, pls. 15, 19 f.; Hampe, , Sagenbilder 66Google Scholar, fig. 27; unpublished in BSA collection. Asine, : Tiryns I 148Google Scholar, fig. 14; Frödin-Persson, , Asine 317 ff.Google Scholar, figs. 218 ff.; unpublished in BSA collection. Troezen: Welter, , Troizen u. Kalaureia, pl. 27.Google ScholarKalauria, : AM XX 317Google Scholar; unpublished fragment in BSA collection. Lerna: Caskey in Γέρας Κεραμοπούλλου. Argos, Berbati, Kandia: unpublished fragments in BSA collection. Aegina: Furtwängler, , Aegina, pl. 125Google Scholar; Kraiker, , Aigina, pls. 4f.Google Scholar; unpublished in BSA collection. Corinth, : Corinth, VII pl. 22, no. 154.Google Scholar Perachora: unpublished. There is also Late Geometric of Argive appearance from Tegea, (BCH XLV 407 ff., figs. 54–58)Google Scholar, Melos, (Tiryns I 147, fig. 13)Google Scholar and from seventh-century graves in the Fusco cemetery at Syracuse, (NS 1893, 477; 1895, 135–186).Google Scholar Late Geometric has since come to light in 1952 in French excavations at Argos and in a chamber-tomb cleared by Dr. Papademetriou by the new Shaft Grave Circle at Mycenae.

11 A similar tonelessness is characteristic of much Attic subgeometric of the seventh century; it became prevalent in Athens in the advanced Late Geometric (e.g. AA 1938, 438, fig. 73).

12 A date as late as the third quarter of the seventh century for kraters of this class is suggested by the finds at Corinth and Syracuse (cf. p. 38, n. 10).

13 Cf. the hydriskai from the Heraeum, Argive, Hesperia XXI, pl. 55.Google Scholar

14 This usage was much favoured in Corinth in the last third or so of the seventh century and the first third of the sixth.

15 Corinth VII i, pl. 32, no. 233; Hesperia XVII, pl. 79, D 13.

16 This form is matched by Schliemann, , Tiryns 118Google Scholar; cf. also Wace, , Chamber Tombs, pl. 56.Google ScholarCf. the handle fragment Hesperia XXI 199, no. 236, pl. 53.

17 For the profile cf. the Corinthian stirrup-handlers from a well of the end of the sixth century, Hesperia VII 583, fig. 12.

18 This form is, however, hardly found among the true miniatures (pp. 48 ff.).

19 In the archaeological collection at Argos, apparently from the shrine BCH XXXI 180, which should therefore be assigned to a male divinity or hero rather than to Artemis; the larger decorated kantharoi do not seem to have been represented in this deposit.

20 Cf. the cognate form AJA XLIII 424, fig. 12, no. 1225, fig. 13, and p. 425 where the presence of two-handled kantharoi is remarked. The form also occurs in MrCaskey's, deposit, Hesperia XXI 196, no. 199, pl. 53.Google Scholar

21 From Polis, , BSA XXXIX 20Google Scholar, fig. 7, pl. 10; from Aetos, p. 289, Fig. 11 no. 773.

22 As Tiryns I, pl. 18.

23 Cf. the baby one from Argos, , ADelt XV 47, fig. 29.Google ScholarCf. also the relief in Argos, Vollgraff, , Inhumation en terre sacrée 24, fig. 3.Google Scholar

24 AE 1937, 386, fig. 10, perhaps in an early context; cf. also Hesperia XXI 195, no. 190, pl. 53.

25 Wace, , Chamber Tombs, pl. 56Google Scholar; Blegen, Prosymna II, fig. 411; also at Argos, cf. p. 44, n. 19.

26 Cf. the handled vase from Mycenae, Wace, , Chamber Tombs, pl. 56, H.2.Google Scholar

27 Hesperia XXI 185, no. 133, pl. 49, with a second protome no. 134.

28 Cf. Corinth XV ii, pl. 13, IX 11–12. Mr. R. V. Nicholls attributes the protome to a date around the middle of the century (or a little later), cf. BSA XXXII, pl. 16, 7; Perachora I, pl. 107, no. 236, Corinth XV ii, 92, mould 13.

29 Hesperia XXI 197 ff., pls. 54–55.

30 For protome miniatures cf. Tiryns I 101, fig. 37; Argive Heraeum II 98, figs. 33 f.; Argos (cf. p. 44, n. 19), and perhaps also AJA XLIII 421, fig. 11 (fourth row); Hesperia XXI 200, nos. 243 ff., pl. 56.

31 Cf. Perachora I, pl. 29, 3 (all-glazed), and possibly Blegen, Prosymna II, fig. 439, no. 192; for the vase-form see Dunbabin, Perachora I 148 ff.Google Scholar The pointed spike is also found on bronze phialai, cf. ibid., pl. 65, 1.

32 Cf. Argive Heraeum I 57, fig. 30, II 96 f., fig. 32; Schliemann, Tiryns, pl. 27bGoogle Scholar; Tiryns I 99, figs. 31 f.; Hesperia XXI 194, Nos. 181–6, pl. 53. The bowl with suspension holes seems to appear in the Geometric era at Corinth, (Corinth VII i, pl. 8, no. 50).Google Scholar

33 Cf. Frickenhaus, , Tiryns I 95Google Scholar; for the play of colours cf. Argive Heraeum II, pl. 64, 4.

34 For the lugs cf. Tiryns I 99, fig. 32.

35 Cf. Tiryns I 97, fig. 30; Nauplia Mus. 3454; Perachora I, pl. 29, 22; Corinth, , AJA XXXV 20, fig. 18Google Scholar; Ure, , Sixth and Fifth Century Pottery from Rhitsona, pl. 10.Google Scholar

36 Dr. R. J. Hopper has kindly looked over the Corinthian material with me and given me the benefit of his advice. Mr. T. J. Dunbabin elucidated obscure points in the design of no. 7

37 The flat strap-handle of no. 1 is uncommon in Protocorinthian; it is matched at the Heraeum, Argive, AJA XLIII 424Google Scholar, fig. 12.

38 Cf. most closely Corinth VII i, pl. 17, no. 123; the legs of the birds on D 3 (Plate 18), 3 are shorter and more supple.

39 The arrangement of the pattern on no. 4 recalls a slightly earlier usage (cf. Perachora I, pl. 12, 2 from the Akraia deposit; BSA XLII 147, fig. 6a, 151, n. 4) but is matched in a deposit of Protocorinthian pottery fragments of c. 700 B.C. at Old Smyrna.

40 Cf. Kraiker, , Aigina pls. 17 f., nos. 253–4.Google Scholar

41 Discoveries in the destruction stratum at Old Smyrna confirm that dog-kotylai were current in the Early Corinthian period.

42 Cf. Payne, NC 295 f.Google Scholar; Hopper, , BSA XLIV 223f.Google Scholar: other Transitional pieces Kraiker, , Aigina, pl. 32, nos. 425–428Google Scholar, and perhaps pl. 11, no. 166.

43 Cf. Robertson, , BSA XLIII 27 f.Google Scholar; Hopper, , BSA XLIV 229 f.Google Scholar; Weinberg, , Corinth VII i, 38 f.Google Scholar, Hesperia XVII 211. The earliest examples are Kraiker, , Aigina, pl. 8, no. 130Google Scholar, BSA XLIII, pl. 5, no. 72 (Ithaca), and a fragment from an eighthcentury level at Old Smyrna.

44 Cf. Pease, , Hesperia VI 284.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Hesperia VI 284, fig. 22 (late fifth-century).

46 The doubled verticals descend as late as the beginning of the fifth century at Corinth, , Hesperia VII, 584Google Scholar, figs. 13 f.

47 Cf. Vanderpool, , Hesperia XV 294, on nos. 81–95.Google Scholar Lekythoi with similar processions are also dated in the early fifth century, cf. Thompson, Hesperia, Suppl. IV, 31.

48 E.g. Hesperia XV, pls. 46 ff. The Boeotian (and Corinthian?) skyphoi of MrsUre's, group, BSA XLI, 25 f.Google Scholar, present a similar style dating after the middle of the fifth century, but there the scheme and outlines of the figures are no longer archaic. For the boudoir scene on r.f. vases of the first half of the fifth century see Coliu, , Collection Kalinderu, 90 f., 127 f.Google Scholar

49 A similar pig's ruff, however, appears in Corinthian Transitional, Kraiker, , Aigina no. 404, pl. 31.Google Scholar

50 For a similar provincial appreciation of livestock cf. the fattened geese on the Eretrian b.f. amphora BSA XLVII, pl. 9 and the Boeotian flock on Gamedes' oenochoe (Hoppin, , Handbook of Black Figure Vases, 18 f.Google Scholar). For the pig family cf. the Late Geometric vase Louvre A 514 (Stackelberg, , Gräber d. Hellenen, pl. 9Google Scholar; Pottier, , Vases antiques, p. 22Google Scholar).

51 The same group of figures, though with the addition of a second man on the right, appears on a skyphos of almost identical form, Corinth Mus. P1705.

52 Cf. the domination of Corinthian black glaze forms in Ithaca in the fourth century, whereas Ionic workshops followed the Attic.

53 Cf. Greifenhagen, , Att. Schwarzfig. Vasengattung, pl. 2, 2.Google Scholar

54 Blegen, Prosymna II, fig. 498, no. 108.

55 The smaller one corresponds to Mrs. Weinberg's Profile 3 (sixth to early fifth century), and the larger approximates to her Profile 10 (about Early Hellenistic), Corinth XII 148 ff.

56 Cf. AE 1937, 384 fig. 8.

57 For Argive primitives, cf. Heraeum, Argive: AH I 44Google Scholar, fig. 17 f.; II 16 ff., pls. 42 ff.; AJA XLIII 422, fig. 10; Hesperia XXI 184 f., pl. 48. Mycenae: Winter, , Typen I 26.Google ScholarArgos, : BCH XXX 37, fig. 64 f.Google Scholar; XXXI 156, fig. 5; Vollgraff, , Opgravingen te Argos, pl. 8Google Scholar; in vicinity of Argos, , BCH XXXI 180.Google Scholar Tiryns: Schliemann, , Tiryns 150 ff., nos. 70 ff., 359 ff., nos. 159 ff.Google Scholar; Tiryns I, pl. 1 ff., Epidauros, : PAE 1948, 105Google Scholar, fig. 9, 108, fig. 12; 1949, 98. Asine: Frödin-Persson, , Asine 334, fig. 225.Google Scholar Troezen: Welter, , Troizen u. Kalaureia, pl. 9.Google Scholar Hermione: cf. Frickenhaus, , Tiryns I 52.Google Scholar Klenies: cf. BSA XXXII 23 n. 5. A fifth-century series from graves at Argos, , ADelt XV, 22Google Scholar, fig. 6 ff. Aegina: Furtwängler, , Aegina, pl. 111, 5 f.Google ScholarCorinth, : AJA 1939, 598Google Scholar, fig. 9 (centre)? Perachora, : Perachora I, pls. 109–111.Google ScholarTegea, : BCH XLV 424, fig. 63, no. 346Google Scholar; Winter, , Typen I 26f.Google Scholar; BSA XXXII, pl. 16, 2, 6; BMC Terracottas 77 f.: Breitenstein, , Cat. Terracottas, Copenhagen, pl. 20, nos. 183–4.Google ScholarHalae, : Hesperia IX 466, fig. 158Google Scholar (cf. Jenkins, , BSA XXXII 32 n. 1).Google ScholarCf. also MrsStillwell, , Corinth XV ii, 31 f.Google Scholar These primitives are associated with the cult of male as well as female beings (e.g. Apollo Maleatas at Epidauros).

58 For the two coils of hair on the brow cf. AH II 20, fig. 19.

59 BSA XXXII 24.

60 Cf. Payne, , Necrocorinthia 306, nos. 880–82Google Scholar; for the treatment of the hair cf. Perachora I, pl. 94, no. 94.

61 Cf. BSA XXXII, pl. 15, Perachora I, pl. no, nos. 245 and 247; Tegea (unpublished).

62 Cf. Corinth KT 9–16 (Corinth XV ii, pl. II, VIII 39), and one mould-generation earlier, Corinth XII, pl. 5, no. 77.

63 Mr. R. V. Nicholls has kindly given me advice and comparisons for these pieces, as also for the protomes (B 31 ).

64 A similar example AH II, pl. 44, 1. A Mycenaean precursor Ann. XXIV–XXVI 15 figs. 1–4.

65 Cf. AH II 18, fig. 15, Schliemann, , Tiryns 149, no. 76Google Scholar, Tiryns I 83, fig. 21, Perachora I, pl. 111, no. 264 f.; cf. also MrsStillwell, , Corinth XV ii 207.Google Scholar

66 Cf. the Attic head Hesperia VII 202, fig. 36, A.F. 584.

67 For Argive rider figurines, cf. Heraeum, Argive: AH II 16, fig. 1, pl. 48, no. 245Google Scholar; AJA XLIII 421, fig. 11. Mycenae: Schliemann, , Mycenae, pl. 19, no. 110Google Scholar; Winter, , Typen I 25, 3.Google ScholarArgos, : BCH XXX 37, fig. 63.Google ScholarTiryns, : Tiryns I 83Google Scholar, fig. 20. Asine: Frödin-Persson, , Asine 309Google Scholar, fig. 213, 334, fig. 225. Epidauros, : PAE 1948, 105Google Scholar, fig. 9, 108, fig. 12. Kalauria, : AM XX 317Google Scholar, fig. 33. Lerna: Caskey in Γέρας Κεραμοπούλλου. Perachora, : Perachora I, pl. 100, nos. 166–7?Google Scholar

68 The paint itself hardly visible in Plate 23 on account of encrusted mud, from which it is almost inseparable.

69 Cf. Lorimer, , BSA XLII 134, pl. 18 Aa.Google Scholar

70 Also a second, crouching and with head raised, from the 1952 excavation.

71 Cf. Epidauros, , PAE 1948, 105, fig. 9.Google Scholar

72 The slip may not normally have been carried over the hind quarters (cf. no. 23, Plate 23).

73 Cf. BCH XLV 407, fig. 54; AJA XLIII 421, fig. 11.

74 The join after the omikron is certain.

75 Cf. the early vase-inscription IG IV 1341, and the stele from Ligourio dated in the latter part of the fourth century, Hesperia VII 537, fig. 8.

76 The second ny is clear on the sherd.

77 Shorter forms in the oblique cases of proper names in -ων are not infrequent at Corinth and in the Argolid, though no contraction corresponding to that found here has been noted; cf. Ποτε(i)δᾶ IG IV 237; the accusative Ἀπόλλω, IG IV i2 128, 19, LS9.

78 Similar inscribed tiles have been found at the temple of Athena on the summit of the citadel at Mycenae and near the Lion Gate (BSA XXV 37).Google Scholar Tiles from other sites in the Argolid (Argive Heraeum, Argos, and the Asklepieion of Epidauros) seem generally to bear stamped inscriptions only, but scraps with hand-drawn inscriptions have come to light on the site of the pyramid by Ligourio, (Hesperia VII 536, fig. 7b–c).Google Scholar

79 Cf. Wilhelm, , ÖJh VII 106 ff.Google Scholar, and among recent finds the inscribed vases from the South Stoa deposit at Corinth, (AJA XXXIX 71, fig. 15Google Scholar; Hesperia XVI 240, pl. 59; Hesperia XVIII 152, pl. 16) which are prior to the destruction in 146 B.C. The cursive forms do not seem to have occurred on the inscribed kantharoi of the fourth century at Corinth, (Hesperia XVII, pl. 88, no. 6).Google Scholar

80 Perhaps wood, as at Sparta and Delos (cf. Wace, , BSA XIII 16Google Scholar).

81 Cf. Wace, loc. cit., with chronology ibid. 43.