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Late Minoan Pottery, A Summary1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

Mervyn Popham
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Extract

It is some time since the development of Late Minoan pottery has been considered as a whole and adequately illustrated. In many respects, Mackeprang's account, published nearly thirty years ago, still remains the most concise, readable, and well-illustrated summary of the subject; but it is limited to the Late Minoan III period and, inevitably, is now in need of revision.

It seems worth while, therefore, despite the still serious gaps in our knowledge, to attempt to give a general outline of Late Minoan pottery, taking the opportunity both to include illustrations of new material where this is appropriate and to revise and augment the charts of characteristic motives given by Pendlebury. The purpose of this article does not go beyond giving a very broad account; it is not a detailed analysis though such a study is indeed required.

Should there be a discernible Knossian bias in this article, it may be due partly to the author's work having been largely centred there and partly to his belief that, in several stages of the pottery of the island, it was Knossos which set the standard.

The pottery of the end of the Middle Minoan period is, in general, dull and uninteresting. The impetus which led to the technical and artistic achievement of Middle Minoan II seems to have exhausted itself. At Knossos, the Palace suffered a catastrophe, the result of an earthquake as Evans thought, though the widespread signs of fire could well indicate attack and deliberate destruction. Large deposits of pottery of this period were found there: they are characterized by masses of ill-made table ware, mostly undecorated, and by badly proportioned large vases. Decoration consists for the most part of a roughly executed ripple pattern or a solid black glaze occasionally relieved by a spiral or other motive in white paint. Elsewhere in Crete the picture is much the same; the pottery is poor in standard and there is a suggestion of sterility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 62 , November 1967 , pp. 337 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1967

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References

2 AJA xlii (1938) 546–55. This is not to ignore or belittle the account by Furumark in MP and subsequent studies, which are basic and detailed, but not illustrated with photographs. See also Pendlebury, , AC 201–11 and 243–53.Google Scholar

3 Pendlebury, , AC 283Google Scholar: ‘This abandonment of polychromy is coupled with generally inferior pottery and is probably due to the employment by the upper classes of richer materials. In M.M. III, indeed, pottery held much the same position as “earthenware” today.’

4 Too much emphasis can easily be placed on the Lily Jar Deposit (PM i. 576): compare, for instance, the pottery from the House of the Sacrificed Oxen and from the House of Fallen Blocks (PM ii. 303–11).Google Scholar

5 See account in Unpublished Objects from the Palaikastro Excavations (BSA Supplementary Paper I, henceforth abbreviated to PKU), 21.

6 PM ii, fig. 349 illustrates in one photograph only part of the deposit, now in Heraklion Museum.

7 PM ii. 436–7.

8 PM iv, fig. 195.

9 In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

10 Sherds in Heraklion Museum. For whole or restored vases see JHS xxiii (1903) 249 and BM A 579–80.

11 The so-called ‘in-and-out bowls’: see PKU, fig. 17.

12 See Bosanquet's remarks and interpretation in PKU 22–23 and Fummark, , MP 151.Google Scholar

13 From recent excavations; see BSA lx (1965) 251.

14 For evidence of an L.M. IB destruction at Knossos near the Royal Road, see Hood below, n. 16.

The pottery from the South House suggests that it too may have been destroyed at the same time and not in L.M. IA as Evans thought, cf. PM ii, fig. 213 and the S.I. series of sherds in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos. There is no clear evidence, however, to support the view that the Palace itself was damaged at the same time, as suggested by Hood, in Kadmos iv (1965) 32.Google Scholar

15 For the view that these vases are imports from Knossos, see PKU 22; Seager, , AJA xiii. 282Google Scholar and Pseira 30; it is supported by recent excavations at Palaikastro, , BSA lx (1965) 251.Google Scholar For the theory that they were made elsewhere than at Knossos, see Banti, , Phaistos ii. 558–61.Google Scholar

16 Hood, , Archaeological Reports (1961–2) 25–29.Google Scholar

17 Recent excavations at Palaikastro, , BSA lx (1965) 251 and Plate 72 (i)Google Scholar, and at Zakro, cf. Platon, in Ergon 1962, 159–70Google Scholar; 1963, 159–77; 1964, 134–46 and ILN 29 Feb. 1964, 312–14 and 7 Mar. 1964, 356–9.

18 Hood, op. cit. fig. 37.

19 Phaestos ii, fig. 106 and Marinatos and Hirmer, plate 79.

20 Much of the success of these vases depends on the ‘tortional’ arrangement of the decoration, a subject that has been dealt with by most who have considered Minoan art as a whole.

21 Knossos: PM ii, fig. 283, now in the Ashmolean Museum; Palaikastro: PKU, fig. 25, and sherds in the Stratigraphical Museum from Knossos, some illustrated on Plate 81, c.

22 Knossos: Stratigraphical Museum type-sherd collection; Zakro: see n. 17 above.

23 Furumark, , MP 165Google Scholar: ‘The M.M. II and L.M. IB styles in the writer's opinion represent two culminating points of Minoan ceramic decoration, where the spirit of Minoan art has been most clearly and beautifully expressed.’

24 Knossos: Plate 79, ƒ, sherds now on exhibition in Heraklion Museum; Phaestos: see n. 19 above; Rhodes, , Clara Rhodos x. 60Google Scholar, fig. 10; Phylakopi, on Melos, : BSA xvii (1910–11), plate xiv, 2, 4–5.Google Scholar

25 Furumark, , MP 151Google Scholar: ‘… the Myc. I style of decoration has points of contact with both districts’ (i.e. Knossos and east Crete) ‘… the Mycenaean IIA decoration is wholly dependent on the Knossian LM IB style.’

26 For the view of Cretan potters working on the Mainland, see Furumark, , MP 106Google Scholar and OpArch vi. 252. There is much in L.H. I and IIA which is purely Mycenaean, and, even where a vase is obviously Minoan in spirit, often no Cretan parallel is forthcoming.

27 L.M. II exports are few. See Furumark, , OpArch vi. 260Google Scholar and for Trianda, , Wace, in BSA li (1956) 127.Google Scholar But since this was written sherds of Knossian L.M. II goblets have been found at Chania by Mr. Y. Tzedakis, and I am grateful to him for permission to mention them.

28 From recent excavations at Knossos during the construction of the new Stratigraphical Museum: a rescue dig supervised by Mr. G. Cadogan who is publishing the material.

29 In the Ashmolean Museum.

30 Furumark, , MP 166Google Scholar ‘… an outstanding feature of the L.M. II decoration is its strongly ornamental, somewhat stiff and formal character … it is the sign of a new artistic spirit, aiming at the ornate and the grandiose.’ See also OpArch vi. 250–1.

31 e.g. the pithoid jar from the Royal Villa but—such are differences of taste—Evans says of it: ‘Certainly no known vase of the later Period of the Palace can compare with this in magnificence of effect. It represents indeed the acme of the grand “Palace Style”.

32 Contentious points. In support, on the goblet see Wace BSA li (1956) 123–7; on the flat alabastron, Pendlebury, , AC 223Google Scholar and Wace, and Biegen, , Klio xxxii (1939) 137Google Scholar; on the Palace style, Pendelbury, , AC 229–30.Google Scholar In opposition, on the goblet, Furumark, MP 56–59 and 495Google Scholar (rather indecisive, but clarified in OpArch vi. 257, n. 1); on the flat alabastron, Furumark, , OpArch vi 206–9Google Scholar; on the Palace Style, Furumark, op. cit. 256‐9.

I cannot recall having seen elsewhere the small piriform jar claimed as a sign of Mycenaean influence. The shape is clearly Minoan in origin but I can think of only two small vases in an L.M. IB context, one from Knossos, PM ii, fig 291 (e) and one from Zakro, , PM ii. 497.Google ScholarBM A 707 (1 and 2) and AJA lxviii (1964) 352, n. 15 could well both be Mycenaean imports. Like the goblet and alabastron, the small piriform jar suddenly appears in Crete in L.M. II.

33 The unpainted rather low-stemmed kylix is already well in evidence at Knossos in L.M. II contexts. It is different from the shape of the ‘Ephyrean’ goblet.

34 The first is almost certainly from the Tomb of the Double Axes, and is probably that listed as ‘s’ in the tomb contents; the second has been made up from sherds in box v. 1903. T.P. 3 in the Stratigraphical Museum, stated to come from NW. of the Theatral Area.

35 Cf. Furumark, , MP 170.Google Scholar

36 The convex-sided cup, comparable with FS 230, represented in unpublished sherds from the Palace at Knossos; shallow ring-footed cup, see Antiquity xl (1966) plate iii c; conical krater, op. cit. plate v b; kylix, PKU, fig. 68, Mackeprang, plate xxvi, 2 and ADelt xv (1933–5) Parart. p. 52, fig. 5.

37 See the author's views in Antiquity xl (1966) 27.

38 Mackeprang, 548–9; Furumark, , MP 176Google Scholar, who calls the two stages L.M. IIIB 1 and 2 respectively.

39 Palaikastro, , BSA lx (1965) 280Google Scholar; Knossos, , PM ii. 336Google Scholar; Mallia, , Maisons ii, plate xlvi.Google Scholar

40 For the pottery from the Palace see the author's Last Days of the Palace at Knossos, especially 12, n. 30.

41 See BSA lx (1965) 280 and 332–5 with references.

42 Furumark, , OpArch iii. 263Google Scholar and Desborough, , The Last Mycenaeans 7 and 16.Google Scholar The subject of Minoan influence outside the Island during the IIIC stage requires further study; it is, I suspect, even more widespread than has yet been recognized.

43 Kylikes, unpublished material from Chania exhibited in the Museum there; amphoroid craters, ADelt vi. 160, fig. 8 from Episkopi and IIIB/C, PT, fig. 106 from Milatos.

44 Unpublished sherds from the Little Palace and more recent excavations at Knossos.

45 Another case of the mixing of motives, the argonaut and birds, appears on a larnax in Rethymno Museum, Mackeprang, fig. 3. The argonaut reappears on a stirrup-jar from the Kritsa tombs in Ayios Nikolaos Museum, and is depicted on a vase imported into Cyprus, , BSA lv (1960) 116 and fig. 5Google Scholar, in much the same style as it is painted on larnakes. Larnax painting may also have been in part responsible for several features of the IIIC ‘close style’, including that in which animals and fish appear as filling ornaments between the tentacles of the octopus.

46 Compare, for instance, Plate 86, a from Kritsa, and ADelt, vi. 160Google Scholar, fig. 8 (two vases) from Episkopi, both in East Crete, with Matz, Forschungen auf Kreta plates 53, 4 and 56, 3 from Chania.

47 Cf. the two kylikes from Milatos, PT figs. 106–7 (IIIB/C), Mackeprang, plates xxvii, 1 and 2 and Hood, , BSA liii–liv 189 fig. 5, 1Google Scholar; the last a deposit ascribed to IIIA 2 but parallels suggest it is IIIB.

48 See the discussion in BSA lx (1965) 316–42, especially 332–3.

49 See Seiradaki, , BSA lv 1–37Google Scholar and especially 11, 18, and 19.

50 Straight-sided stirrup jars, ADelt vi 155, fig. 2 from Milatos; BSA lv 17, fig. 11, 7 from Karphi. Twisted handles, op. cit. 13, fig. 8, 4.

51 Sub-Minoan, PM ii, fig. 69–70 and Vrokastro, fig. 89. For the Krista tombs, in one of which the pyxis was used as a receptacle for cremations, see Archaeological Reports (1951) 49 and KCh 1951, 444–5.