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Part I. Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 1954

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

The British excavations of Mycenae in 1954 were conducted with research grants from the American Philosophical Society and Bollingen Foundation and with contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, and the British School at Athens, under whose auspices the work was carried out. The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton has again provided an ideal base for preparing the material for publication.

The work began on June 21st and ceased on August 16th, but the next days up to August 21st were spent in studying and photographing the finds and transporting them to the Nauplia Museum. As before, the inscribed clay tablets and the carved ivories were taken to the National Museum at Athens, to the Director of which, Dr. Karouzos, we owe our best thanks for his friendly help, and the other finds to Nauplia.

The staff of the excavation, in addition to my wife, who again took charge of the records, and myself, consisted of Lord William Taylour of Trinity College, Cambridge, Mrs. R. Stillwell, Miss Elizabeth Wace of Newnham College, Cambridge, Mr. T. Leslie Shear, Jr., of Lawrenceville School, Miss Mary Pym of Girton College, Cambridge, Mr. Herschel Shepard of Princeton University, who was architect, Miss B. Kistruck of Edinburgh University, and Miss Helen Higson of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Type
Mycenae 1939–1954
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1955

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References

1 BSA XXV 86 ff.; Wace, Mycenae 66.

2 Wace, Mycenae 66 f.

3 BSA XXV, pl. I (30–5), 68 f.

4 Schliemann, Mycenae, Plan C; Steffen, Karten v. Myk. pl. 2.

5 PAE 1886, 74 ff., Pl. 4.

6 Karten von Mykenai, pl. 2, ‘Grundmauern aus späterer Zeit’.

7 Pendlebury, Aegyptiaca 56, 76, nos. 92 f., 153 f. There are only two from Tomb 58 at Mycenae. The other number, 4695, given by Pendlebury, is an error, for that is a vase from Aphidna, , AM 1896, pl. 14 (4, 5).Google Scholar

8 Tsountas-Manatt, Myc. Age 268; Bennett, , ProcAmPhilSoc Vol. 97, 437.Google Scholar

9 Peet-Woolley, , City of Akhenaten I, pls. LI, LII.Google Scholar Miss Olga Tufnell has kindly given me the following notes on this type of amphora in Palestine and Syria. Our jar is very like one from Tomb 501 at Lachish, (Lachish IV, pl. 87: 1019)Google Scholar, where the type is rare (Lachish II, pl. LVII B). The seals in the tomb include one of Amenhotep III, and the maximum range for the tomb is about 1400–1275 B.C. The Lachish jar has, however, a more curved and wider body than ours. The eighty jars in the depot at Ras Shamra (Schaeffer, Ugartica II, fig. 86: 7) are of the same family and are dated about 1425–1350 B.C. Another jar from Qraye, (Bull. Mus. Beyrouth III, pl. XIg)Google Scholar is dated to the mid-fifteenth century, but the group was not homogeneous and contained Ramesside scarabs. The best parallel seems to be a form published by Macdonald, , Starkey, , and Harding, in Beth-Pelet II, pl. LXXXVI 47Google Scholar H 6 from grave 962 which also contained a scarab of Rameses II.

10 E.g. BSA XXV 25, fig. 7 d.

11 BSA XXV 29.

12 BSA XXV 415 ff.

13 AM 1878, 273.

14 AM, loc. cit.; BSA XXV 330, pl. LIV.

15 VIII 16. 3.

16 Wace, Mycenae 125 f., figs. 8, 9.

17 Itinerary, pl. 3.

18 P. 209; JHS LXXIV (1953), 170.

19 BSA XXV 325 f., pl. LIII.

20 Compare the Bodia tholoi; Valmin, Swedish Messenian Expedition 207.

21 BSA XXIV 201, pl. XI; Wace, Mycenae 68, fig. 86.

22 III 21. 4. Pausanias describes the nodules as being like river stones, τοῖς ποταμὶοις ὲοικὸτες which Frazer translates as ‘pebbles’. In RE s.v. ‘Krokeai’, it is suggested incorrectly, that the stone was first used in Roman times and is verde antico.

23 Evans, , P. of M. III 269, IV 898.Google Scholar

24 Bossert, Art of Ancient Crete, fig. 49.

25 Mr. Ventris calls my attention to a fragment of bone from Tomb 7 at Dendra which Persson (New Tombs at Dendra, 36 f., fig. 36 (4)) thought might be a part of a sword hilt. From his illustration it looks as though it might be a fragment of a disc like ours.

26 Bennett, , ProcAmPhilSoc Vol. 97, 428 (No. Fo 101), 446 ff.Google Scholar

27 See p. 187 below, and BSA XLVIII 13, pl. G b, d.

28 BSA XLIX 238 ff.

29 BSA XLVIII 14, XLIX 239.

30 BSA XLIX, pl. 31 b.

31 I owe this observation to Mr. Herschel Shepard.

32 von Schlosser, J., Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der karolingischen Kunst, (Quellenschriften, new ser. IV), Vienna, 1892, 6.Google Scholar I owe this reference to the kindness of Professor Panofsky.

33 The tablets are to be published by Dr. Emmett L. Bennett, in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.