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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Rearrangement of the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos, emergency digs, chance finds, and interrupted projects of study have combined to leave the author with material which is largely disjointed though some can be welded into cohesive units. Presented partly in the form of a catalogue and partly as expanded notes, it may be useful to those working in the various periods and fields of Minoan studies.
The catalogue below covers some of the finds preserved in the Stratigraphical Museum from the excavations of Evans and Curators at Knossos, which they did not publish or which have been subsequently restored; to these have been added more recent chance finds and objects from emergency excavations in the Knossos area for which the author was responsible. This is followed by an account of some of Evans's deposits from the Palace which have a bearing on the relationship of MM IIIB and LM IA pottery.
1 I should like to thank several people for their help; Petros Petrakis, the School's vasemender, Antonis Zidianakis, our Foreman who brought in the chance finds, Mr. G. MacVarish for help in drawing, Mr. M. S. F. Hood for discussions and for saving a vase from oblivion, and, for last minute additional information from Knossos, Mr. D. Evely and Professor G. Cadogan, the latter of whom also helped to collect parts of one of the vases and kindly allowed me to illustrate the ivory from an emergency dig whose publication he has undertaken.
All dimensions are expressed in centimetres and refer to maximum heights and widths unless otherwise stated.
Apart from the customary abbreviations, the following have been used:
LDPK Popham, M. R., The Last Days of the Palace at Knossos, SIMA v (Lund, 1964).Google Scholar
DPK Popham, M. R., The Destruction of the Palace at Knossos, SIMA xii (Göteborg, 1970).Google Scholar
Strat. Mus. The Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos.
2 Hutchinson, R. W. in BSA li (1956) 74–80Google Scholar where the trials are mentioned but nothing is said of the LM II cup. My suggestion of an LM II date for the tholos in JHS lxxxiv (1964) 210.
3 LDPK passim.
4 PM i 554–6.
5 In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the print was numbered by Evans H. no. 1.
6 LDPK vase no. 7 which from its clay and decoration can be confidently ascribed to W. Crete; so too perhaps nos. 13 and 14.
7 Palaikastro, , BSA lx (1965)Google Scholar plate 75a; Karphi, , BSA lv (1960) 14Google Scholar, line 10.
8 For instance there are straight-sided cups with reed pattern in light-on-dark as well as in dark-on-light. Profiles of typical shapes will be illustrated in drawings, so only a few have been included here.
9 Discussed at length by Professor N. Platon, ‘La Chronologie des réceptacles des trésors du sanctuaire - the Temple Repositories - et des autres dépôts contemporains du Palais de Cnossos' in Acts of the 3rd Cretological Congress; and Levi, D., The Recent excavations at Phaistos, SIMA xi, 10.Google Scholar
10 Mackenzie, , JHS xxiii (1903) 188–90Google Scholar and JHS xxviii (1905) 264. In 1903 he considers the deposit under the general heading of the Late Minoan period but revised its date in 1905 and placed it in the closing period of the MM age.
11 DPK 54 which gives references and details. Box 540 contained two sherds now part of the illustrated ‘Cycladic’ jar and, in addition to the LM II early IIIA sherd (DPK plate 34a) contains the neck and shoulder of a decorated jug which looks LM I.
12 BSA ix (1902–3) 47 and fig. 14. In 1905 Mackenzie comments that the two-handled piriform jars of this cist are exactly like those of the Temple Repositories, whereas Evans, in PM i 458Google Scholar remarks that the contents include a jar (presumably the same amphora) ‘which seems to be typologically slightly earlier than similar vessels of taller proportions found in the “Temple Repositories”. It may therefore be a survival from the earlier MM III phase.’
13 Caskey, J. L., Hesperia xli (1972)Google Scholar plate 90, sherd F3.
14 PM i figs. 333 and 404.
15 Strat. Mus. boxes F I 13–15.
16 Pottery Note Book i (1901) pp. 61 and 63. Pendlebury's Guide, lists three boxes as M III I with the title ‘Area of Tripod Pots’ which he locates in the most southerly part of that room. In addition to the boxes, 1187 and 1188 discussed above and, wrongly, titled ‘K.03 Magazine of Tripod Pots’, there is a third box, 1186, ‘K.01 Area of Olive Press’, i.e. the room to the W. of the Room of Tripod Vases. Such are the confusions facing anyone who wishes accurately to study Evans's material.
17 BSA vii (1900–1) 87. The room is titled ‘Room of Tripod Vases’ on the plan of the area in the 1902 report.
18 PM i 301.
19 PM i fig. 402 and further illustrated in the 1901 report.
20 PM i 570. Initially the cups were ascribed to the MM III stores but the ‘error’ was corrected by Mackenzie, in JHS xxviii (1905) 264Google Scholar and the plan originally published in 1901 amended accordingly in PM i fig. 414.
21 The dimensions of the cups are: (d) H. 9·5, D. 13; (e) H. as restored 8, D. 13; (f) H. 6·6, D. 11·5.
22 PM iii 276.
23 Fine, smooth deep buff slip with dark brown to near black slightly lustrous paint, solid painted inside, H. 12, D. 12–15·5.
24 With deposits in Strat. Mus., there is always the danger that Evans has removed some of the decorated sherds for study and that they have now become separated from their lots.
25 PM iv, fig. 109 and p. 140 from the Snake Cult deposit which Evans tentatively ascribed to LM II, and PM iv, fig. 964 and p. 1015 from the roof terrace of the Temple Tomb. His, like ours, were 8 cm. high. Similar ‘milk-jugs’ have been found in a foundation deposit, together with miniature cups, in the Unexplored Mansion. I suspect they are all LM IA.
26 PM ii 811; iii 276 and iv 878.
