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A Stone Receptacle from the Cave of Hermes Kranaios at Patsos1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

Peter Warren
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Extract

The vase belongs to a group of coarse white limestone vessels usually thought to be libation tables or tables of offering. J. Boardman has, however, suggested that two examples of this form from the Dictaean Cave may be lamp- or torch-holders because the interiors are cubical, completely cut out, with a stepped cutting on the interior base which might have served as a lamp-or torch-socket. The marks of smoke or burning on the Patsos vase would support this view, but there are several points against it. The deep, square-cut interior is hardly suitable as a lamp-holder, Minoan lamps having small round bases. On the other hand the ‘socket’ cut in the interior bases of these vases is shallow, probably not deep enough to support a torch.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 61 , November 1966 , pp. 195 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1966

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References

2 Hogarth, , BSA vi (1899–1900) 114Google Scholar, Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion 2 126–8. The vases which make up the group are: Kannia-Mitropolis villa near Gortyn, Levi, , Bollettino d'Arte xliv (1959) 249 and 253, fig. 24Google Scholar; Patscs, Her. Mus. 585; Pseira, Her. Mus. 1099, with inverted stepped base (unpublished); Psykhro (Dictaean Cave), Ashmolean Museum, AE 219, CCO, no. 272; AE 800; CCO, no. 273; Hogarth, , BSA vi (1899–1900) 114 and pl. XI 3Google Scholar; Fitzwilliam Museum, G.R. 201.1907, probably Hogarth, op. cit., pl. XI 6; Tylissos, Her. Mus. 1556, Hatzidhakis, , Tylissos à l'époque minoenne (1921) 48 and fig. 23 bGoogle Scholar; Crete, Her. Mus. 2593, rectangular, base crudely carved with inverted stepped moulding, Linear A inscription, Platon, , Minoica 1958, 317–18 and pl. 3Google Scholar; Brice, Appendix no. 1, 18 and pl. xxi. All are made of coarse white limestone.

3 CCO 66, nos. 272 and 273.

4 Pace Levi, , Bollettino d'Arte xliv (1959) 237 ff.Google Scholar The rooms on the east side of the villa, I, III, V, VI, and XV must have been cleared and reoccupied as shrines in L.M. III. They contained clay goddesses and snake tubes, but no decorated pottery, save one octopus stirrup vase (fig. 37a). The west rooms of the villa were filled with a large and typical L.M. I assemblage with pithoi and much decorated pottery.

5 BSA vi. 114.

6 Op. cit. 98.

7 Prasa, Platon, , Minoica 1958, 305–17 and pls. 1–2Google Scholar; Brice, 28, no. 18 and pl. XXI. Gournia, : Boyd Hawes, Gournia (1908), pl. v, 17.Google Scholar

8 BSA vi 114, fig. 50.

9 Also noticed by Guarducci, op. cit. 102–3.

10 Marinatos, , La Marine crèto-mycénienne, BCH lvii (1933), pls. XV and XVIGoogle Scholar; SM i. 203–4; PM ii figs. 136, 139–42; Kenna, , Cretan Seals (1960), pl. 4, 64Google Scholar; 10, 241. Dr. Kenna readily confirmed that the engraving is a ship.

11 SM i. 204. A steatite prism from Mallia, SM i. 150, 4**a (Marinatos, op. cit., pl. xv, 36), has rigging on one side only of the mast.

12 SM i. 155, p. 27 a (lunettes attached to uppermost strands of rigging). Kenna, examples in n. 10.

13 SM i. 203. Cf. Kenna, op. cit. 124.

14 PM ii. 249 sqq.; and for the ring fig. 147a. Cf. also a scene, perhaps religious, with figures in and beside a ship, on a ring from Tiryns, Sakellariou, Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel i, no. 180.

15 CCO, fig. 29, no. 272.

16 PM ii, fig. 136a.