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The Pottery of Knossos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Duncan Mackenzie
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Extract

In the first provisional reports of the Excavations in the Palace at Knossos, published by Mr. Evans after each season's work, the general accounts of the distribution and stratification of the pottery play a part in accordance with the importance of this kind of evidence in its bearing on the history of the site. From these accounts it will be seen that there exist on the Palace Site of Knossos and its neighbourhood three distinct strata of deposit.

I. A prehistoric, neolithic stratum, first of all verified in the preliminary pits on the E. slope of the Knossos Hill and successively afterwards in the W. and N.E. regions of the site, then in test-pits sunk within the palace boundaries in the region N. of the S. Propylaea in the Central Court, in the Third Magazine and in the West Court. These test-pits all reached a depth of from seven to eight metres before virgin soil was reached. This gives a thickness of neolithic deposit starting from the virgin soil and extending upwards to the beginnings of the painted series averaging about six metres. This formidable depth of pure neolithic deposit is very much greater than any yet verified in the Aegean region, and in its gradual formation is in itself evidence both of the extreme longevity and of the unbroken continuity of development of the civilization represented by it.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 23 , November 1903 , pp. 157 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1903

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References

1 B.S.A. vi. vii. viii. This paper has been written at the request of Mr. A. J. Evans.

2 See ib. vi. 6–7, where the general characteristics of the neolithic deposit are described.

3 Ib. 7 vii. 5 viii. The excavations of Mr. Hogarth on parts of the city site afford further evidence of the wide distribution at Knossos of Minoan ware of the best period. See Hogarth-Welch, in J.H.S. xxi. 78—98 Google Scholar. Pls. vi. vii.

4 Incised pottery with the incisions filled with white is found at Troy to belong already to the period represented by the First stratum. See Troja und Ilion i. 251.

5 Diospolis Parva. The Cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu, 1901. 14.

6 The neolithic white pigment is according to Virchow, ‘bald krystallinischer, bald kohlensaurer Kalk.’ Zeitschr. für Ethnol. 1883, 451 Google Scholar.

7 Diospolis Parva, 14.

8 Petrie, in J. H. S. xi. 275—6Google Scholar. Pl. xiv.

9 Petrie, , Kahun and Gurob. Pl. 27, Illahun Kahun and Gurob, Pl. I. J.H.S. xi. Pl. xiv, 5—10 Google Scholar.

10 The use of the potter's wheel and oven at Troy as early as the second period represented in the Second stratum of itself excludes the whole of the neolithic looking pottery of this stratum from the genuine neolithic series and assigns it to a post-neolithic date. See Troja und Ilion, 254. When the great prehistoric mounds of Kolophon and elsewhere in the Anatolian coast-region have come to be systematically explored, the analogy with prehistoric Troy in this respect will probably turn out to be complete. The results of exploration in the Libyo-African coast-lands may similarly prove to be in harmony with the ‘neolithic’ evidence from XIIIth. XVIIth. and XVIIIth. Dynasty tombs in Egypt.

11 A solitary exception in the way of fragments of vases in the Palace style found in deposit in the W. Court along the outer edge of the West Wall of the building is adequately explained (B.S.A. vii. 51), by the derivation of the fragments from rooms formerly existing above the adjacent magazines.

12 B.S.A. viii.

13 B.S.A. iv. 41.

14 Ib. 40. If the painted geometric sherds from Tell el-Hesy, which have been assigned with considerable probability to the Aegean, really have a lustrous glaze, then those also may be of Cretan provenance. Ib. 41.

A painted geometric vase from Zakro, with cylindrical neck and angular shoulder having two suspension handles, has its shape and suggestions of a metal proto-type in common with a similar incised sub-neolithic vase from the same deposit. This instance is in harmony with the evidence from the Cyclades, where, as in Melos, at the beginning of the painted series incised and painted geometric wares occur side by side.

15 The beaked can, Mariani, Mon. ant. dei Lincei, vi. Pl. X. 23 Google Scholar, belongs probably to the later geometric class. Evans, S., Onuphrios, H. Deposit in Cretan. Pictographs, 114 Google Scholar, Fig. 106e.

16 Already in the second metre from the virgin soil in the Room of the Olive Press an incised neolithic fragment had traces of red filling.

17 The vases are thinner in section than appears on the plate because it is impossible in colour and with the brush to reproduce so fine a section.

18 The tailed spiral occurs in lustreless colour in the first grave at Mycenae, see F., and L., Myth. Thongef. p. 3 Google Scholar I. 3. For another fragment in ‘matt’ colour from Mycenae, see F., and L., Myk. Vas. 54, 55Google Scholar, and Fig. 33. The tailed spiral motive was a favourite space-filling device also in fresco-painting probably at this and certainly at a later period, see B.S.A. vii. 87. Fyfe, , in Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, p. 121 Google Scholar, Figs. 45, 46.

19 4 has h. 58½c. base d. 17c. shoulder d. 45c. rim d. 25¾c. 5 has h. 49c. base d. 17½c. shoulder d. 42c. rim d. 25½c.

20 See Fyfe, , ‘Painted Plaster Decoration at Knossos,’ in the Journal of the Royal Institute, of British Architects, Vol. x. No. 4, p. 116, p. 109Google Scholar, Fig. 2, restoration A. The crescent device is one of the most common on contemporary Melian, ware, see B.S.A. v. 17 Google Scholar. The early occurrence at Knossos in vase and wall-painting thus brings back to the great Minoan period the origin of the similar design in post-Mycenaean times. See Boehlau, , Aus Ion. u. Ital. Nekropolen p. 65 Google Scholar, Figs. 26, 29, 30. Taf. ii. 5, iii. 1, 3. Also in polychrome design on b. f. fragment from Mytilene in Brit. Mus. See Boehlau, ib. 71. Similarly the garland with pointed leaves occurring on post-Mycenaean pottery, ib. Taf. iii. 1 x, 17, xi. 1 1888, 7, 2, has historic continuity with the exactly similar motive on our vase. The Samian vase, Boehlau iii. 1, shows both our crescent and our garland motive together. The survival or revival as the case may be is so faithful to tradition that even the tendency of the design—r. in the case of the garland, l. in the case of the crescents—is repeated. The crescents change their direction only when they are repeated in a second series.

21 See above, p. 170.

22 The large proportion with black glaze slip in this case is to be accounted for by the fact that many of the fragments were of a type of cup that almost always has a slip.

23 B.S.A. iv. 47, v. 19. Furtw. u. Loeschcke, Myk. Thongef. vi. (from IV. Shaft-grave). Furtw., Antike Gemmen, iii. 20 Google Scholar and notes. J.H.S. xi 275–6, Pl. xiv. 5–10.

24 Monochrome ware occurs also at Kamares, as, for example, Myres, , Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, xv. Pl I. 6, II. 7Google Scholar.

Hogarth-Welch, J.H.S. xxi. Pls. VI. VII. give only polychrome ware. Furtwängler, , Ant. Gemmen, iii. 20 Google Scholar, note 3, identifies the ware from Egypt and that published by Myres and Mariani with his own and Loesohcke's First Style and further cites ‘bei anderen Gattungen’ parallels between Egyptian finds and certain ones from Crete and Mycenae, for example, Petrie, , Illahun-Kahun, Pl. I. 8 Google Scholar, with Myres, , Pl. I. 6, cited above, and with the vase of the Second Style Myk. Thongef. Taf. 3, 12 Google Scholar; but he does not say whether ho regards these latter essentially monochrome examples as belonging to the same fabric as the polychrome ware. From the examples cited, however, the conclusion should be all the same that F. and L.'s.

Second Style runs parallel with their First and that, thus taken together, they answer respectively to the Minoan Polychrome and Monochrome Styles.

25 B. S. A. vii. 47, Fig. 14.

26 These jugs, with differences traceable to the exigencies of the potter's art, are the counter-part in clay of the spouted one-handled metal jugs of the Kefti. See Müller, , Asien und Europa, p. 349 Google Scholar, Nos. 8 and 9. 1 has h. 41c. base d. 13½c. shoulder d. 29c. 2 has h. 39½c. base d. 14c. shoulder d. 26c.

27 B.S.A. v. 17–18. Three examples of this class are known from Thera. See F., and L., Myk. Vas. 21 Google Scholar, Figs. 7 and 8, and Dumont 21, No. 45, Pl. II, 21.

28 B.S.A. iv. 46.

29 J.H.S. xxii. Pl. xii. 2 and 3 contemporary, of course, with vase 1. See Evans, , B.S.A. viii. 89 Google Scholar.

30 The three-handled spouted jug from Thera, F., and L., Myk. Vas. 19 Google Scholar, Fig. 6, Dumont, , Céram. Pl. II. 14 Google Scholar, is so similar to these in design and apparently in technique as almost certainly to belong to the Cretan school of this period.

31 See B.S.A. vii. 10–12. Figs. 4, 24,26–28.

32 There is here a curious anticipation of the means by which the Greek black-figured technique became transformed into a red-figured style in the latter half of the sixth century B.C.

33 Again and again in later history we find the survival and revival of polychrome practice in ceramic art connected in a special way with the cult of the dead.

34 The conventional symmetry of arrangement in the case of Fig. 13, 2, goes back to Egyptian models; compare, for example, flower detail on painted pavement, Tell-el-Amarna Pl. II.

35 The birds and the fish (the latter also in fresco) recur in contemporary Melos, (B.S.A. iv. Pl. II. p. 46 Google Scholar) and Mycenae (F. and L. Myk. Thongef. ix.). Later examples from Sparta, F., and L., Myk. Vasen. xvii. 111 Google Scholar, Mycenae ib. xxxix. 402. The vase ib. xiv. 87 is from Crete. probably from Knossos.

36 The late neo-lithic painted ware from Thessaly hardly comes into this comparison.

37 Thus, for example, in the Journal of the R.I.B.A. Vol. x. No. 4, the spiral design, Figs. 43 and 44, probably going back to time-honoured Minoan traditions of fresco-painting, are light on a dark ground. On the other hand the tailed spiral design, ib. Figs. 45 and 46, is dark on a light ground.

38 In this connection the influence of relief-painting must have been paramount in the fifth century B.C. That the Knossians also were not behind in such good example has been amply proved for us by the discovery of the remains of grand frescoes in low and high relief. We have also already seen that the Knossian potters themselves, under the influence of old traditions in vase-painting as in fresco-painting, were very near the solution of the old problem of a style in light design on a dark ground in the manner of the red-figured Greek style. That this solution was not followed out was perhaps owing to the fact that the interest of the Cretan potter in human subjects was not so strongly developed as in the case of the Greek potter of a later time.

39 B.S.A. vii. 66–67, where the date of the lid is referred by Dr. Evans to the latter part of the nineteenth, or the beginning of the eighteenth century B.C.

40 See Asien u. Europa, 348–9.

41 Petrie, , Tell-el-Amarna, 17 Google Scholar, Pls. XXVI–XXX.

42 See Boehlau, , Aus Ionischen und Italischen Nekropolen, pp. 52–124 Google Scholar. Furtwängler, , Antike Gemmen, iii. 14 Google Scholar, who, however, goes quite against the evidence from Crete in assigning the first extended use of lustrous varnish not to Crete but to the Greek mainland.

43 It is not surprising to find that there is apparently continuous local survival in the case of fabrics meant for cult or tomb-use. Thus the polychrome ware of Naukratis, , see B.S.A. v. 57–8Google Scholar. The geometric Aeolian ware found in Etrurian tombs, Boehlau ib. 91–2, Figs. 45–47. For actual survival of Minoan design-motives in post-Mycenaean times, see above, p. 179 and Boehlau ib. 65. Later examples are the white-figured lekythoi of Athens; and the polychrome amphorae of Italy.

44 For a fragment from Knossos, with similar design restored, see B.S.A. vii. 52–3Google Scholar, Fig. 15, a.

45 Horns of Consecration on Sanctuary Wall, , see J.H.S. xxi. 136 Google Scholar, Fig. 18. See also ib. 191, Fig. 65.

46 Proof from real usage has been forthcoming this year with the discovery of a shrine with altar in the Palace at Knossos. The ‘Horns of Consecration’ were in their place upon the altar together with the sacred images. A small steatite symbolical Double-axe was also found near the table of offerings, while between each pair of horns was the hole in which the shaft of a similar double-axe was fixed. See B.S.A. viii. 100.