History of Ancient Pottery 9

 History of Ancient Pottery 9

Footnote 43:

 

The writer is indebted to the Introduction to M. Pottier’s admirable

little Catalogue of the Vases in the Louvre for many ideas worked up

in the foregoing pages.

 

Footnote 44:

 

See Pottier’s Catalogue, i. p. 59.

 

Footnote 45:

 

See the Introduction to Furtwaengler’s Catalogue.

 

Footnote 46:

 

Cf. the lists given by Jahn, _Vasens. zu München_, pp. xi, xiv, with

(for instance) the notes appended to the pages of Reinach’s

_Répertoire_.

 

Footnote 47:

 

The collection made by Baron Hirsch in Paris is now incorporated with

this Museum.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

_SITES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF DISCOVERY OF GREEK VASES_

 

Historical and geographical limits of subject—Description of Greek

tombs—Tombs in Cyprus, Cyrenaica, Sicily, Italy—Condition of

vases when found—Subsequent restorations—Imitations and

forgeries—Prices of vases—Sites on which painted vases have been

found: Athens, Corinth, Boeotia, Greek islands, Crimea, Asia

Minor, Cyprus, North Africa, Italy, Etruria—Vulci

discoveries—Southern Italy, Sicily.

 

 

Before dealing with Greek vases in further detail, it may be as well to

say something of the circumstances under which, and the localities in

which, they have been discovered. And further, we must clearly define

the limits of our subject, both historically and geographically.

 

(1) =Historical.=—It may seem somewhat paradoxical to doubt whether the

primitive pottery found on Greek soil ought, strictly speaking, to be

called Greek. In a succeeding chapter we shall have occasion to touch

upon the question of the ethnological origin of this pottery, which, in

the opinion of some authorities, is not the product of Greeks as we

understand the term, but of some Oriental nation, such as the

Phoenicians. It is, however, enough for our present purpose that it has

been found on Greek soil, and that it forms a stage which we cannot

omit from a study of the development of Greek pottery, seeing that its

influence can be plainly traced on later fabrics.

 

Turning to the other limit of the subject, we find that nearly all the

latest vases, belonging to the period of the Decadence, were

manufactured in Southern Italy or Etruria. But nearly all bear so

unmistakably the stamp of Greek influence, however degenerate and

obscured, that we can only regard them as made by Greek artists settled

in the colonies of Magna Graecia, or at any rate by native workers in

direct imitation of the Greeks.

 

We may roughly define our historical limits as from 2500 B.C., the

approximate age of the early pottery of Crete, Cyprus, and Hissarlik,

down to 200 B.C., when the manufacture of painted vases came to an end

under the growing dominion of Rome. It was formerly supposed that the

senatorial edict of 186 B.C., forbidding the performance of

Bacchanalian ceremonies in Italy, was the means of putting an end to

this industry, but this is hardly borne out by facts; it rather died a

natural death owing to the growing popularity of relief-work both in

terracotta and in metal (see Chapters XI. and XXII.).

 

(2) =Geographical.=—Having defined our historical limits, it remains to

consider the extent of Greek civilisation during that period, as

attested by archaeological or other evidence. Besides the mainland of

Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea, the whole of Asia Minor may

be regarded as in a measure Greek, although practically speaking only a

strip of territory along the western coast became really Hellenised,

and we shall not be concerned with pottery-finds in any other part of

the country.[48] To the north-east, Greek colonisation penetrated as

far as Kertch and other places in the Crimea, known to the ancients as

Panticapaeum and the Bosphoros respectively. In the Eastern

Mediterranean the island of Cyprus will demand a large share of our

attention. Egypt, again, has yielded large numbers of vases, mostly

from the two Greek settlements of Naukratis and Daphnae; and farther to

the west along the north coast of Africa was the Greek colony of

Kyrene, also a fruitful site for excavators.

 

The rest of the ground is covered by the island of Sicily and the

peninsular portion of Italy from Bologna southwards. Greek vases have

occasionally turned up in Spain, Gaul (_i.e._ France and North Italy),

as at Marseilles (Massilia), where primitive Greek pottery has been

found, and also in Sardinia; but the Western Mediterranean sites are

chiefly confined to Southern Italy and Etruria. In fact, till recent

years these regions were almost our only source of information on Greek

pottery, as has already been pointed out.

 

Generally speaking, it may be said that all Greek vases have been found

in tombs, but the circumstances under which they have been found differ

according to locality. We propose in the succeeding section to say

something of the nature of the ancient tombs, and the differences

between those of Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and other sites.

 

Of finds on the sites of temples and sanctuaries it is not necessary to

say much here; the explanation of such discoveries will receive some

attention in Chapter IV., and the individual sites will also be noted

in the next section of this chapter. It is a rare occurrence to find

complete vases under these circumstances, as they generally owe their

preservation to the fact that they have been broken in pieces and cast

away as rubbish into holes and pits. The most notable instance is the

remarkable series of fragments discovered on the Acropolis at Athens.

 

Greek tombs are not usually very remarkable in character,[49] being for

the most part small and designed for single corpses; this may possibly

account for the comparatively small size of the vases discovered on

most Hellenic sites. In the earlier tombs at Athens and Corinth the

pottery was found at a very great depth below the soil. The six

shaft-graves in the circle at Mycenae are of great size, and contained

large quantities of painted pottery; an exact reproduction of the

sixth, found by M. Stamatakis in 1878, with its contents, is in the

National Museum at Athens. Here also are reproductions of two typical

fifth-century Greek tombs containing sepulchral lekythi,[50] and

showing how the vases were arranged round the corpse.[51]

 

Rock-graves are seldom found in Greece, the normal form of tomb being a

hole or trench dug in the earth, either filled in with earth or covered

with tiles (as at Tanagra). The rock-grave is almost exclusively

Asiatic, but some fine specimens were found at Kertch in the

Crimea.[52] Some large ones have also been found in Rhodes,[53] but the

most typical form of tomb there is a square chamber cut out of the hard

clayey earth, approached by a square vertical shaft and a door. They

generally contained single bodies, round which were ranged vases and

terracotta figures. Sir A. Biliotti, in his diary of the excavations at

Kameiros (1864), also records the finding of tombs cut in the clay in

the form of longitudinal trenches, covered with flat stones forming a

vaulted roof. Others were merely troughs cut in the surface of the rock

and covered with stones and earth. In the shafts of the first type of

tomb large jars or πίθοι were often found containing the bones of

children (see page 152). Nearly all these tombs have yielded Greek

vases of all dates. In the island of Karpathos[54] Mr. J. T. Bent found

tombs containing early pottery, consisting of two or three chambers

with stone benches round the sides.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 1. INTERIOR OF COFFIN FOUND AT ATHENS, SHOWING

ARRANGEMENT OF VASES.]

 

The tombs of Cyprus are especially interesting for two reasons:

firstly, that they exhibit types not found elsewhere; and, secondly,

that they vary in size and character at different periods of the

island’s history. In the earliest tombs of the Bronze Age period (down

to about 800 B.C.) we find a very simple type, consisting of a mere

oven-like hole a few feet below the surface of the ground, with a short

sloping δρόμος leading to it (Fig. 2). These tombs have very rarely

been found intact, and in most cases are full of fallen earth, so that

exact details of their original arrangement can seldom be obtained.

Each tomb generally contained a few exported Mycenaean vases and a

large number of local fabric, usually hand-made and rude in character.

The rich cemetery of Enkomi is, however, an exception, for here we find

large _built_ tombs, with roofs and walls of stone. Sometimes the

Bronze Age tombs were in the form of a deep well.[55]

 

[Illustration:

 

From _Ath. Mitth._

 

FIG. 2. DIAGRAM OF BRONZE AGE TOMBS, AGIA PARASKEVI, CYPRUS.

]

 

In the Graeco-Phoenician period (about 700–300 B.C.) the “oven” type of

tomb is preserved, but on a larger scale and at a greater depth, and

often reached by a long flight of stone steps. These tombs usually

contain large quantities of the local geometrical pottery, as many as

eighty or a hundred vases being sometimes found in one tomb. At Curium

and elsewhere, where the tombs contain Greek painted vases, they are

sometimes in the form of narrow ramifying passages.

 

The tombs of the Hellenistic period are of a very elaborate character,

especially those of Roman date, with long narrow δρόμος leading to a

chamber some ten by twenty feet or more, round the walls of which are

sarcophagi and niches; but these tombs seldom contain any but plain and

inferior pottery, the manufacture of painted vases in the island having

come to an end, as in the rest of Greece.

 

Frequently a tomb was found to contain pottery of widely different

periods, especially in cemeteries such as Amathus and Curium, where the

finds are of all dates, showing that the tombs were used again and

again for burials.[56]

 

The tombs in the Cyrenaica, which were explored by Mr. Dennis and

contained many Greek vases, he describes as follows[57]: “The great

majority of the tombs were sunk in the rock, in the form of pits, from

6 to 7 feet long, from 3½ to 4½ feet wide, and from 5 to 6 feet

deep.... Vases were sometimes placed in all four corners of the

sepulchre, but this was rare; they were generally confined to two

corners, often to one. The most usual place was the corner to the right

of the head, and this was the place of honour; for here a Panathenaic

vase in the tomb of a victor, a ribbed amphora of glazed black ware, or

more commonly an ordinary wine-_diota_, would be deposited upright,

with a number of smaller vases within it, or at its foot, either

figured or of black or plain ware, according to the circumstances of

the deceased. Occasionally small vases, or sometimes terracotta

figures, were placed along the sides of the tomb, between the head and

feet of the corpse; but I do not remember ever to have found vases

deposited on the breast, or under the arms of the deceased, as was

often the case in the Greek tombs of Sicily.”

 

Mr. Arthur Evans has given an interesting account of the tombs at Gela

(Terranuova) in Sicily, from which he has excavated many fine vases for

the Ashmolean Museum.[58] Chronologically the limits of their date can

be ascertained, between the foundation of Gela in 589 B.C. and its

depopulation by the Carthaginians in 409 B.C., but a few tombs belong

to the subsequent period down to 284 B.C., when it was finally

destroyed by the Mamertines. In the early graves containing B.F. vases

skeletons were found; these tombs were in the form of terracotta cists

with gabled covers and tiled floors. The next stage, containing R.F.

vases, has vaulted roofs made of two pieces of stone. During this

period cremation-pits containing ashes and bones are sometimes found;

the burnt bones were placed in kraters and covered with shallow

vessels. In these were found white lekythi, in some respects rivalling

those of Athens; but the subjects are domestic rather than sepulchral,

and they are probably, like many of the B.F. and R.F. vases, local

fabrics. Some of the tombs with B.F. vases are in the form of chambers

with vaulted cement roofs. In the earlier tombs the disposition was

usually as follows: a kylix on the left side of the head, an alabastron

under the right arm, and a lekythos under the left (Fig. 3.). The tombs

of Selinus, which are all of early date, have been described by a local

explorer.[59]

 

[Illustration:

 

From _Ashmolean Vases_.

 

FIG. 3. DISPOSITION OF VASES IN TOMB AT

GELA, SICILY.

]

 

We next review the types of tombs in Italy from which vases have been

obtained. Those at Vulci, and in the Etruscan territory generally, from

which the finest and largest vases have been extracted, are chambers

hewn in the rocks. The early tombs of Civita Vecchia and Cervetri are

tunnelled in the earth; in Southern Italy, especially in Campania, they

are large chambers, about two feet under the surface. In

D'Hancarville’s work (see p. 17) an illustration is given[60] of a tomb

in Southern Italy, which is constructed of large blocks of stone,

arranged in squared masses, called the Etruscan style of masonry, in

contradistinction to the Cyclopean. The walls are painted with

subjects, the body is laid upon the stone floor, and the larger vases,

such as the kraters, are placed round it. The jugs are hung upon nails

round the walls. Fig. 4. gives an example of a tomb of this kind from

Veii. A full account, with illustrations, of the tombs excavated in the

Certosa at Bologna about thirty years ago, has been given by Signor

Zannoni.[61] The tombs of Southern and Central Italy were made upon the

same plan, and the same description applies to both sites.[62]

 

The most ordinary tombs were constructed of rude stones or tiles, of a

dimension sufficient to contain the body and five or six vases; a small

one near the head and others between the legs, and on each side, more

often on the right than on the left side. An oinochoe and phiale were

usually found in every tomb; but the number, size, and quality of the

vases varied, probably according to the rank or wealth of the person

for whom the tomb was made. The better sort of tombs were of larger

size, and constructed with large hewn stones, generally without, but

sometimes completed with, cement; the walls were stuccoed, and

sometimes ornamented with painted patterns.

 

In these tombs, which were like small chambers, the body lay face

upwards on the floor, with the vases placed round it; sometimes vases

have been found hanging upon nails of iron or bronze, attached to the

side walls. The vases in the larger tombs were always more numerous, of

a larger size, and of a superior quality in every respect to those of

the ordinary tombs, which had little to recommend them except their

form.

 

Many of the larger and more important Etruscan tombs have also been

described and illustrated by Dennis in his work on Etruria, especially

those of Vulci and Corneto, which are famous both for their contents

and for the paintings which adorn their walls.[63] In the basement of

the British Museum may be seen large models of Etruscan tombs in which

the arrangement is carefully reproduced.

 

The vases, as we have already mentioned, are often ranged round the

dead, being hung upon or placed near the walls, or piled up in the

corners. Some hold the ashes of the deceased; others, small objects

used during life. They are seldom perfect, having generally either been

crushed into fragments by the weight of the superincumbent earth, or

else broken into sherds, and thrown into corners. Some exhibit marks of

burning, probably from having accompanied the deceased to the funeral

pyre. Sometimes they are dug up in a complete state of preservation,

and still full of the ashes of the dead.[64] These are sometimes found

inside a large and coarser vase of unglazed clay, which forms a case to

protect them from the earth.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 4. THE CAMPANA TOMB AT VEII, AS IT APPEARED WHEN

OPENED.]

 

* * * * *

 

Almost all the vases in the museums of Europe have been mended, and the

most skilful workmen at Naples and Rome were employed to restore them

to their pristine perfection. Their defective parts were scraped,

filed, rejoined, and supplied with pieces from other vases, or else

completed in plaster of Paris, over which coating the restored portions

were painted in appropriate colours, and varnished, so as to deceive

the inexperienced eye. But either through carelessness, or else owing

to the difference of process, the restorations had one glaring

technical defect: the inner lines are not of the glossy hue of the

genuine vases, and there is no indication of the thick raised line

which follows the original outline in the old paintings. Sometimes the

restorer pared away the ancient incrustation, and cut down to the

dull-coloured paste of the body of the vase. Sometimes he even went so

far as to paint figures in a light red or orange oil paint on the black

ground, or in black paint of the same kind on orange ground. But in all

these frauds the dull tone of colour, the inferior style of art, and

the wide difference between modern and ancient drawing and treatment of

subjects, disclose the deception. The calcareous incrustation deposited

on the vases by the infiltration into the tombs of water, containing

lime in solution, can be removed by soaking the vases in a solution of

hydrochloric acid.[65]

 

In other cases vases with subjects have been counterfeited by taking an

ancient vase covered entirely with black glaze, tracing upon it the

subject and inscription intended to be fabricated, and cutting away all

the black portions surrounding these tracings, so as to expose the

natural colour of the clay for the fictitious ground. When red figures

were intended to be counterfeited, the contrary course was adopted, the

part for the figures only being scraped away, and the rest left

untouched. Vases, indeed, in which the ground or figures are below the

surface should always be regarded with suspicion, and their genuineness

can only be determined by the general composition and style of the

figures, and by the peculiarities of the inscriptions. The latter also

are often fictitious, being painted in with colours imitating the true

ones, and often incised; indeed, nearly all inscriptions incised after

the vase has been baked are liable to give rise to suspicion. The

difference of style in the composition of groups, and especially small

points in the drawing, such as the over-careful drawing of details, the

indication of nails, and various other minute particulars, are also

criteria for detecting false or imitated vases. Water, alcohol, and

acids will remove false inscriptions, but leave the true ones intact.

 

Greek vases are not so easy to imitate as terracotta figures, the main

difficulty being the black varnish, which can never be successfully

reproduced. Acids or alcohol will always remove modern counterfeits,

but cannot touch the original substance. Since the discovery in Greece

of white-ground vases forgers have had a better chance, and they have

often ingeniously availed themselves of genuine ancient vases on which

to place modern paintings. But the antique drawing is exceedingly

difficult to imitate. In former times Pietro Fondi established

manufactories at Venice and Corfu, and the Vasari family at Venice, for

fictitious vases,[66] and many such imitations have been made at Naples

for the purpose of modern decoration.

 

The first to make such an attempt in England was the famous potter

Wedgwood, whose copy of the Portland Vase is well known. His paste is,

however, too heavy, and his drawings far inferior to the antique in

freedom and spirit. At Naples, chiefly through the researches and under

the direction of Gargiulo, vases were produced, which in their paste

and glaze resembled the antique, although the drawings were vastly

inferior, and the imitation could be at once detected by a practised

eye. They were, indeed, far inferior in all essential respects to the

ancient vases. Even soon after the acquisition of the Hamilton

collection by the public, the taste created for these novelties caused

various imitations to be produced. Some of the simplest kind were made

of wood, covered with painted paper, the subjects being traced from the

vases themselves, and this was the most obvious mode of making them.

Battam also made very excellent facsimiles of these vases, but they

were produced in a manner very different from that of the ancient

potters, the black colour for the grounds or figures not being laid on

with a glaze, but merely with a cold pigment which had not been fired,

and their lustre was produced by a polish. In technical details they

did not equal the imitations made at Naples, some of the best of which

deceived both archaeologists and collectors.

 

Sometimes illustrations of vases which never had any real existence

have appeared in publications. One of the most remarkable of these

fabricated engravings was issued by Bröndsted and Stackelberg in a fit

of archaeological jealousy. A modern archaeologist is seen running

after a draped woman called [PHÊMÊ], or “Fame,” who flies from him

exclaiming, [ΕΚΑΣ ΠΑΙ ΚΑΛΕ], “A long way off, my fine fellow!” This

vase, which never existed except upon paper, deceived the credulous

Inghirami, who too late endeavoured to cancel it from his work. Other vases, evidently false, have also been published.