History of Ancient Pottery 31

History of Ancient Pottery 31

From _Brit. School Annual_, ix.

STAND FOR VASE; KAMARAES WARE.

FROM PALAIOKASTRO, CRETE.

]

 

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The appearance of the so-called Kamaraes ware is unmistakable, with its

bright, almost gay, aspect, and the contrast of the colours with the

lustrous black ground. The pigments employed are four in number—milky

white, yellow ochre, brick-red, and purple-red. These vases are mostly

made on the wheel, and the buff-coloured clay is fairly well levigated,

as is the slip, on which the pigments are directly laid; its lustre

often almost rivals that of the best Hellenic pottery. Mr. Evans found

some specimens in 1902 of an extremely delicate character, almost as

thin as an egg-shell. The colours are, however, sometimes dull and

powdery, and apt to flake away except when fired. The forms are of a

Cycladic type, the favourite being a two-handled globular vase with

spout, and a pear-shaped one-handled vase, also with a spout[899] (see

also Plate XIV.[900]).

 

The decoration is, as has been indicated, plastic as well as pictorial;

the relief ornaments are often of an elaborate type, as may be seen in

some of Mr. Hogarth’s finds.[901] Some vases are merely covered with

knobs, or with a sort of honeycombing in relief[902]; in others toothed

or bossed bands are employed, either simply or combined into complex

patterns. In any case this plastic element is quite a new departure.

The pictorial designs include geometrical and linear patterns, zigzags,

network, concentric circles, spirals, and swastikas; leaves, rosettes,

and other vegetable forms; fishes, and even in one case a human

figure.[903] The chief field of decoration is the shoulder of the vase.

 

Although varying in the extent of their naturalism, the patterns

exhibit considerable boldness and power of drawing; they seem to be

drawn chiefly from floral or textile sources, and are closely parallel

to the Thera vases, but more advanced. Some motives are of Mycenaean

character, such as the use of rows of white dots[904]; on the other

hand, the style of the fishes and human figure is more like that of the

Geometrical vases.

 

Mr. Hogarth notes that metal types of Kamaraes cups appear in the hands

of Kefti tributaries in the paintings of the tomb of Rekhmara (about

1550 B.C.), and he even found their Neolithic prototypes at Kephala,

near Knossos.[905] He also traces a connection with the early Aegean

pottery of Phylakopi in Melos. The Kamaraes pottery can be shown not to

have survived the incoming of the new Mycenaean influences, but the

patterns rapidly became conventionalised, and are replaced by the new

motives of the Mycenaean wares. It may further be noted that fragments

of Kamaraes ware have turned up not only in Egypt, as at Kahun (already

mentioned), but at Tiryns, in the fifth and sixth Acropolis graves at

Mycenae, and at Curium in Cyprus.

 

(3) The pottery of the “Late Minoan” period from the palace of Knossos

falls into two groups—the “palace” style, and the ordinary Mycenaean

fabrics. The former class of vases has been found in considerable

numbers in the second palace, and also at Zakro and other sites. The

vases are painted in a lustrous brown-to-black glaze on a buff

hand-polished slip, with fine and elaborate naturalistic designs,

including vegetable patterns, birds, and fishes; others, again, are

more architectonic in character.[906] We also find adaptations of the

Kamaraes style, with bands of white paint laid on the black varnish,

the usual forms being a flat bowl and a small cup with flat handles

like the Vaphio cups.[907]

 

In their decoration the most highly developed varieties of the “palace”

style show a parallelism with the wall-paintings, the patterns

consisting of rosettes, spirals, and conventional flowers; in some very

naturalistic examples this is strongly marked, the designs of olive and

myrtle wreaths and bulbous plants showing an almost Japanese fidelity

to nature. Others, again, have marine subjects—seaweed, shells, and

rocks. Lastly, there are the representations of the double axe, which

Mr. Evans has shown to be a religious symbol.[908]

 

The whole of this pottery belongs to the third or highest period of

Mycenaean pottery, a time when decadence was actually beginning to set

in, concurrent with the end of the eighteenth dynasty. At this time all

over the Aegean area, in Melos, Egypt, and elsewhere, the styles of

pottery were perfectly uniform, and had clearly been imported from one

centre. In the light of recent discoveries we can no longer doubt that

this centre was Crete, and the previous history of its pottery and the

early development of its technical processes, as well as its

geographical position, point in the same direction. About the year 1500

B.C. the site appears to have been invaded and abandoned, with the

consequent result that Mycenaean civilisation now spread all over the

Aegean, centring chiefly in Greece, where it lasted several centuries

longer. Of its influence on Cyprus we have already spoken.

 

Mycenaean vases had turned up in Crete for some time previous to 1899

in a sporadic fashion[909]; but these, being for the most part of the

ordinary type, do not call for separate consideration. There is,

however, one class that appears to be peculiar to the island. It

consists of large “false amphorae” and other vases, made of a rough

coarse-grained clay, and decorated in the “third Mycenaean” style with

large cuttle-fish; at Knossos this was found only outside the palace,

and was probably a coarse household ware. A good specimen has also been

found at Curium in Cyprus.[910]

 

§ 4. MYCENAEAN POTTERY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, _Mykenische Thongefässe_ (1879), and

_Mykenische Vasen_ (1886); Dumont-Pottier, i. p. 47 ff.; Perrot,

_Hist. de l’Art_, vi. p. 893 ff.; Pottier, _Louvre Cat._ i. p.

181 ff. General reference should also be made to Schuchhardt,

_Schliemann’s Excavations_ (transl. E. Sellers); Schliemann’s own

works; Hall, _Oldest Civilisation of Greece_; Tsountas and

Manatt, _The Mycenaean Age_; and other works.

 

We have already had occasion to deal to some extent with Mycenaean

pottery in connection with Cyprus and Crete, but it is now necessary to

review it as a whole in the light of the present state of our knowledge

of this wonderful civilisation and its products. To enter here upon the

wide and much-debated questions to which the discoveries of the last

thirty years have given rise is of course beyond our province; but the

pottery of the people to whom the name Mycenaean has been somewhat

loosely given is of so homogeneous a character, although found in all

parts of the Mediterranean, that it may be treated as a phase of Greek

ceramics, independently of considerations of ethnography and

chronology. First found in any quantity at Ialysos in the island of

Rhodes, its exact position in the history of early art was not then

recognised; but when the marvellous discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann

at Mycenae became known to the world, including large numbers of

similar vases, Sir Charles Newton readily recognised that the Ialysos

vases in the British Museum belonged to the same class. It was not long

before the whole number of vases of this type, now christened

Mycenaean, was collected in a “Corpus” by two German scholars, with

numerous illustrations; but since that time the excavations of

“Mycenaean” sites in Cyprus and Crete must have doubled or even trebled

the material available.

 

The pottery at Mycenae was found in four different positions, implying

consecutive chronological stages, ranging roughly from the fifteenth to

the tenth or even ninth century. On these grounds Furtwaengler and

Loeschcke[911] distinguished four main classes; but it will be seen

that these are capable of even more subdivision. There are, in fact,

two main classes, distinguished by the use of _matt_ and lustrous

colour respectively; and of the first of these two, of the second four,

subdivisions are possible.

 

Class (1) is indeed comparatively rare,[912] and only found at Thera

and in the oldest tombs on the Mycenaean Acropolis; it represents the

transition from the pottery of Troy and Thera to that of Mycenae. The

subdivision is a purely technical one: (_a_) vases of pale coarse clay,

with patterns in a brown colour, some hand-made[913]; (_b_) wheel-made

vases of a reddish and finer clay, the designs in black and pale red,

occasionally white.[914] The decoration generally resembles that of the

Thera vases, and animals occasionally appear.

 

(2) The vases with lustrous painting may be classified as follows:

 

(_a_) Badly levigated clay; floral motives in matt-white or

red-brown on black ground.[915] A fine example of this class was

recently excavated at Maroni in Cyprus, a large krater with a

figure of a bird outlined in white on either side (Plate XII.).

 

(_b_) Similar clay, but coated with a white or yellow slip on which

geometrical or floral patterns are painted in lustrous black.[916]

 

(_c_) Fine clay with polished yellow surface; designs in black

turning to red or yellow, with occasional details in white;

chiefly marine plants and animals, but occasionally (especially in

Cyprus) human figures.[917] This class is by far the most numerous

of all, but is not found in Thera. It corresponds with the period

1400–1000 B.C.

 

(_d_) Clay grey or reddish, less brilliant, as is also the black;

large figures of quadrupeds and human figures.[918] The vases are

sometimes painted _inside_, which is a sign of late date.

 

The structure of these vases is very varied, and no less than 122

different forms may be distinguished in the illustrations to the

_Mykenische Vasen_. Most characteristic and popular is the “false

amphora,” as it is generally termed (German, _Bügelkanne_), a vase with

spheroidal body, of varying size, with the peculiarity that the

ordinary neck and mouth on the top are closed by a flat handle arching

over the vase, and the only aperture is a spout on one side (see Plate

XV. and Fig. 82). These are very widely distributed, but their

decoration is as a rule very simple; they appear depicted on the

paintings of Egyptian tombs of the eighteenth dynasty, and this has

often been used as an argument for the dating of Mycenaean vases. But

they must have remained in favour for a considerable period. Other

favourite shapes are: a funnel-shaped vase with handle at the top,

doubtless a reminiscence of a Hissarlik type (p. 258); a tall graceful

two-handled goblet or kylix, almost invariably decorated with

cuttle-fish (see Plate XV.), as the funnel-vases are with murex (purple

dye) shells; a beaked jug (German _Schnabelkanne_), derived from Thera;

a squat jar or pyxis, with three small handles (cf. Fig. 82); and a

tall pear-shaped vase with three handles on a high stem, which is

perhaps the prototype of the hydria. The large kraters are, as we have

seen, peculiar to Cyprus. Rarer forms are a sort of mug, and a

combination of the false amphora and pyxis. Mention should also be made

of the painted λάρνακες or _ossuaria_ found in Crete by Mr. J. H.

Marshall (p. 268 above) and by Dr. Orsi.[919]

 

The technique presents several entirely new features, such as the use

of a slip as a basis for the colours; the polished, brilliant, and even

surface; and above all the lustrous black varnish, which was the

peculiar pride of Greek potters, and is now a lost art. The comparative

monotony of the colouring is probably due to a purely technical reason,

namely, the difficulty of resisting the action of fire; otherwise such

an artistic people would doubtless have exhibited the same richness of

colouring in their pottery that we find in their frescoes.

 

The Mycenaean pottery is deservedly held in high estimation for its

picturesque and naturalistic style, which in its reproduction of animal

and vegetable forms often rivals Japanese art. Although its scope is

remarkably wide, yet there is a strong preference for marine

subjects—the cuttle-fish, the murex shell, the nautilus, and various

kinds of seaweed or such plants as the _Vallisneria spiralis_ (Chapter

XVI.). In Fig. 82 two good examples in the British Museum are

illustrated—one from Egypt, the other from Kalymnos.[920] Altogether

there is an originality and poetry of ideas such as never appears again

in Greek art; but that is not a peculiar possession of the potters, as

the metal-work, gem-engraving, and fresco-paintings testify—above all,

such masterpieces as the Vaphio gold cups, or some of the

wall-paintings recently discovered in Crete.

 

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PLATE XV

 

[Illustration:

 

MYCENAEAN POTTERY

(BRITISH MUSEUM).

]

 

_To face page 273._

 

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Religious ideas, on the other hand, are strangely conspicuous by their

absence. Mycenaean mythology is so far almost nonexistent in the art;

and although attempts have at times been made to detect traces of early

cults, as in the figures of men dressed as animals,[921] or the

representations of the double axe,[922] they have not as yet met with

universal acceptance. More improbable is the curious idea recently

mooted,[923] that the subjects of the vase-paintings indicate an

acquaintance with such theories as those of biological evolution.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 82. MYCENAEAN VASES WITH MARINE SUBJECTS (BRIT.

MUS.).]

 

Mycenaean pottery has been found on a very large number of sites

throughout the Mediterranean. The most productive have been Mycenae,

Crete, and Cyprus, especially the cemetery at Enkomi in the latter

island. Other Cypriote centres are Curium, Agia Paraskevi near Nicosia,

Maroni, and the neighbourhood of Dali and Larnaka (see p. 66). In

Attica the Acropolis of Athens and the beehive tombs of Spata and

Menidi have been most fruitful, and finds have been made at Haliki and

elsewhere. In the Peloponnese the chief site is Tiryns, and many

fragments have also been found at Nauplia; in Central Greece several

sites in Boeotia, such as Orchomenos, may be mentioned. Of the Aegean

islands, Rhodes and Melos are most conspicuous, especially the sites of

Ialysos in the former island, Phylakopi in the latter. In Asia Minor,

Mycenaean remains are rare, except at Troy, but in Egypt there is ample

evidence of a close commercial relation, as in the finds at

Tell-el-Amarna, in the Fayûm, and elsewhere. In the Western

Mediterranean, Syracuse has yielded numerous fragments, and occasional

finds have been made in Italy.[924]

 

Having reviewed the extent of Mycenaean influence, the next question we

must consider is which, if any, was the centre whence this pottery was

exported. It had been for some time observed that the early varieties

of Thera, and those of Crete and Cyprus (_v. supra_), showed strong

indications of local origin; but on the whole the Mycenaean pottery

proper is remarkably uniform and homogeneous. It is perhaps possible to

detect technical differences between the pottery, _e.g._, of Athens and

Rhodes, but they may be only differences of date rather than fabric.

Furtwaengler and Loeschcke regarded Argolis as the centre of

manufacture, at least for the later lustrous varieties[925]; Pottier,

on the other hand, writing before the recent discoveries, thought that

Crete was, after Thera, the original centre, and Argolis only

subsequently, the pottery of Rhodes lying midway between. In the light

of the Cretan discoveries it is now possible largely to disregard

previous theories. We have seen that Mycenaean pottery found in Crete

has a pedigree which no other region can claim, and that it can only

have a local origin. We have also seen that the Cretan supremacy came

to an end about 1500 B.C., and that, though the pottery may have

continued to be made in the island, it ceased to be an exclusive

centre, and for the remainder of the Mycenaean Age the art, learned in

Crete, spread to other Aegean centres—Mycenae, Rhodes, and Cyprus.

 

A far more difficult question to decide is the ethnographical one,

together with the consideration of the relation of the Mycenaean

civilisation to others in which the same decoration appears (as in the

case of the spiral). One point seems to be abundantly clear, viz. that

Mycenaean decoration owes nothing to Oriental influences. That there

was a close relation with the East has already been indicated, and is

much more apparent in other forms of Mycenaean art; but no student of

this art in general can doubt that it is, as has been pointed out,

purely spontaneous and unique, the art of a people of genuine artistic

genius. Among the art of ancient races it stands alone in this respect,

that of Egypt and Assyria, its only prominent rivals, being always

essentially conventional; and herein lies its special distinction.

 

That the Mycenaeans were a maritime people admits of no doubt. It is

shown by the position of their chief centres, by the evidence of their

extensive commercial relations, and, as far as concerns their pottery,

pre-eminently by the subjects which form the staple decoration. Hence

of late years an attempt has been made to substitute for “Mycenaean”

the more comprehensive term “Aegean,” and there is much to be said in

its favour. As regards the actual ethnographical position of the race,

_Quot homines, tot sententiae_, may almost be said. They have been

identified with the Achaeans, the Pelasgians, the Phoenicians, the

Carians, and as combinations of Phrygians with Cretans, of Phoenicians

with Greeks of Asia Minor.[926] But few of these terms have real

historical value, and such identifications do not really advance the

solution of the question.

 

A more real ground of battle is that afforded by the question of date,

though on this point scholars now show a greater tendency to fall into

line, and a period culminating in the years 1400 to 1100 or 1000 B.C.

is now very generally accepted.[927] The question necessarily turns

largely on the evidence afforded by Crete and Egypt, and so far as this

is trustworthy it all points in the same direction. But it would be

beyond the scope of a work of this kind to do more than briefly

summarise the general results of archaeological criticism.

 

An interesting study of Mycenaean ornamentation has been made by Dr.

Riegl,[928] who deals generally with the principles underlying its

vegetable motives, and points out that here we first meet with scrolls

or continuous bands of foliage applied to a decorative purpose. These

motives are peculiar to Greek art, and in Mycenaean design their origin

is to be sought. In this way we may regard it as the immediate

forerunner of Hellenic art, although its development was temporarily

arrested by the Dorian invasion, just as the people who produced it

formed the basis of the Hellenic race. The naturalism of Mycenaean

ornament, which is seen both in continuous and in isolated patterns, is

in marked contrast to the convention of Egypt, where the same motives

may be in use. It is not, in short, the motive, but its treatment,

which shows the independence of Mycenaean art. There are, again, other

patterns, such as the spiral, which cannot be traced in Oriental art,

and seem to be purely original, at least as far as concerns the Eastern

Mediterranean.

 

Another recent writer, Dr. S. Wide, has noticed that where Mycenaean

influence was originally strongest, as in Crete and Rhodes, there its

characteristics were most strongly impressed upon the art of the

succeeding period, and he is inclined to place the centre of the fabric

in these islands or on the coast of the adjoining continent of Asia. At

all events the Mycenaean influence shows itself more in the pottery of

the islands than it does in Attica; and, in Crete and Rhodes in

particular, instances have been found of undoubted survivals of typical

Mycenaean ornaments in later pottery.