Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:24:25.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Transitional Phase in Minoan Metallurgy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Extract

In 1961 Miss Sandars published her important paper on the ancestry of the Aegean long-sword. She argued that the long-sword was an Aegean invention under Syrian influence, and traced some of the features of the long-sword back to the Early Bronze Age weapons of Crete. The present writer has recently published a comprehensive survey of these Early Bronze Age weapons and demonstrated that in E.M. III and M.M. IA several Syrian features were adopted for the Minoan long daggers. It has also proved possible to illustrate an influx of actual Syrian daggers, probably in M.M. IB–M.M. II, and to suggest the place they should occupy in the development of Minoan metallurgy. Despite these various inquiries, however, the vital transitional period of Minoan metalworking—M.M. IB–M.M. II—remains obscure. Apart from one or two exceptional pieces like the Mallia swords and the decorated dagger from Lasithi the products of this period have gone unstudied and their importance to the emergence of the long-sword and broad dagger has gone unrecognized. It is this situation which the writer seeks to remedy. This paper attempts to trace the development of the four main weapons of M.M. III–L.M. II (the long-sword, short-sword, broad dagger, and ‘winged’ dagger) from the end of the Early Bronze Age. A catalogue gives details of thirty-two weapons which the writer considers to belong to this transitional phase. Many of these were found in association with material of M.M. IB–M.M. II date, but some are not closely datable and others are probably to be dated to M.M. IA or possibly even E.M. III. This is because the qualification for entry into the catalogue has been that a weapon is of a transitional character, rather than of a certain date. In fact the transitional phase would seem to overlap to some extent with the end of the distinct and quite individual Early Bronze Age phase of metallurgy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY RELATIVE TO THE CATALOGUE

Banti, (1933). ‘La Grande Tomba a Tholos di Hagia Triadha’, Annuario xiii–xiv.Google Scholar
Branigan, (1968). Copper and Bronze Working in Early Bronze Age Crete (Lund).Google Scholar
Chapouthier, (1928). Études Crétoises ii (Paris).Google Scholar
Chapouthier, (1936). Études Crétoises xxx (Paris).Google Scholar
Dunand, (1937). Fouilles de Byblos I (Paris).Google Scholar
Evans, (1921). The Palace of Minos I (London).Google Scholar
Evans, (1935). The Palace of Minos IV (London).Google Scholar
Hogarth, (1900). ‘The Dictaean Cave’, BSA vi.Google Scholar
Marinatos, (1933). ‘Funde und Forschungen auf Kreta’, AA 1933,Google Scholar
Pernier, (1951). Il Palazzo Minoico di Festos II (Rome).Google Scholar
Pernier, (1905). ‘Scavi della Missione Italiana a Phaestos 1902–3’, MonAnt xiv.Google Scholar
Sandars, (1961). ‘The First Aegean Swords and Their Ancestors’, AJA lxv.Google Scholar
Seager, (1912). Excavations on the Island of Mochlos (Boston and New York).Google Scholar
Xanthoudides, (1924). The Vaulted Tombs of the Messara (London).Google Scholar
Zervos, (1956). L'Art de la Crete (Paris)Google Scholar