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The BSA's Geometric collection: Kynosarges et alia1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Abstract
This article publishes the entire holding of Geometric vases in the Museum of the British School at Athens. It includes numerous grave offerings found in one of the School's earliest excavations (1896–7), on the site of the Kynosarges Gymnasium in the south-eastern outskirts of ancient Athens. Other Geometric vases came to the School piecemeal over many years, from purchases of the Finlay collection up to the bequests from G. Empedocles and T. J. Dunbabin.
Attic Geometric comprises the great majority of the School's holding, among which are several characteristic pieces from the Late Geometric II pitcher workshops. Other regional styles represented are Corinthian, Parian, Melian and Cretan.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2003
Footnotes
1
At every stage in the preparation of this article I have been grateful for help from the School's staff, both in Athens and in London. Dr Rebecca Sweetman (Assistant Director) kindly supplied me with inventory documents and photographs, and greatly assisted my access to the pottery in the School's Museum. My thanks are due also to Mrs Helen Clarke (Athens Secretary), Dr Amalia Kakissis (Archivist), Mrs Penny Wilson-Zarganis (Librarian) and Dr Elizabeth Waywell (London Secretary). I am grateful to Dr Marcella Pisani for archival information concerning the growth of the School's collection. Dr N. Kaltsas and Mrs Elizabeth Stasinopoulou kindly answered queries relating to the records in the National Museum of Athens. I express my gratitude also to Mrs Ann Thomas for the drawings, and to Marie Mauzy for most of the photographs.
Abbreviations, other than those in general use:
Borell = B. Borell, Attisch Geometrische Schalen (Mainz, 1978).
Droop = J. P. Droop, ‘Dipylon vases from the Kynosarges site’, BSA 12 (1905–6), 80–92.
GCP = R. E. Jones, Greek and Cypriot Pottery: A Review of Scientific Studies (BSA Fitch Laboratory, 1986).
GGP = J. N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery: A Survey of Ten Local Styles and Their Chronology (London, 1968).
Ker. V. 1 = K. Kübler, Kerameikos V. 1. Die Nekropole des 10 bis 8 Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1954).
KNC = J. N. Coldstream and H. W. Cading (eds), Knossos North Cemetery, Early Greek Tombs (BSA Supp. 28, 1996).
Schweitzer = B. Schweitzer, Greek Geometric Art (London, 1971).
References
2 Thirteen Submycenaean and Protogeometric vases in the School's collection have already been fully published by Catling, R. W. V.: BSA 84 (1989), 177–85Google Scholar and 85 (1990), 37–46.
3 BSA 2 (1895–1896), 23 Google Scholar.
4 Ibid.; BSA 3 (1896–7), 232–3.
5 From glass negatives in the BSA London archive: nos. 5073 (PLATE 39 a), and 5067 (PLATE 39 b).
6 On evidence both topographical and epigraphical, identification as the Kynosarges Gymnasium is strongly supported by Travlos, J., AAA 3 (1970), 6–14 Google Scholar and his Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London, 1971), 340 Google Scholar where full references are given to earlier research. In his view, the Greek building excavated by Harcourt Smith was probably the palaestra, later to be covered by a Roman bath house.
7 BSA 2 (1895–1896), 24 Google Scholar. ‘Upwards of sixty’ are mentioned, ranging in date from Geometric to Hellenistic.
8 See Abbreviations (n. 1).
9 Apart from the items catalogued here, the remaining K numbers refer to the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman finds from the 1896–7 excavations in the School's collection, the latest being Roman lamps of the 5th c. AD (K 32–35a). Of the vases included in Droop's article, we exclude here K 78, the Archaic pyxis lid with birds (Droop 89, fig. 11, bottom R.) and K 42–3 (Droop 88, ‘thin miniature lecythi without handles’) which are Roman unguentaria of the first century AD. On the other hand we include the following pieces not mentioned by Droop: K16 (Early Protoattic amphora rim fr.) and K18 (LG kantharos, rim fr.); also three pieces which seem to belong elsewhere, K19 (Submycenaean amphoriskos), K82 (Laconian PG skyphos fr.) and K92 (Laconian PG krater fr.).
10 Glass negatives 5076 (here PLATE 46, KS2–5) and 5077 (PLATE 46, KS1).
11 JHS 22 (1902), 29–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Letter of 14 Feb. 2002 from Dr N. Kaltsas, Director of the National Museum of Athens. The ‘Kynosarges amphora’, when mended and restored, was eventually inventoried as Athens 14497; the number suggests that its registration occurred some years after the fragments came to the Museum.
13 Information kindly supplied by Dr E. Stasinopoulou, Curator of Vases in the National Museum of Athens.
14 JHS 22 (1902), 30 Google Scholar. Harcourt Smith suggested that the ‘Kynosarges amphora’ may originally have served as a grave monument.
15 Droop 91–2, fig. 12.
16 Kynosarges 1896, excavation notebook I, 49–50.
17 Snodgrass, A. M., Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh, 1964), 40, A 26Google Scholar; 46–7.
18 BSA 2 (1895–1896), 25 Google Scholar.
19 Claudia Wagner, forthcoming.
20 Alexandri, O., AAA 5 (1972), 165–76Google Scholar; A. Delt. 27 (1972), B 93–6Google Scholar, pls. 62–3, intersection of Od. Vougliamenis, Trivonianou and Eupompou. Near by (Od. Theophilopoulou) is another MG II cremation with neck-handled amphora, skyphos, and gold band: A. Delt. 27 (1972), B 62 Google Scholar, grave 4, pls. 50, 51.
21 For much detailed information about the growth of the collection I thank Dr M. Pisani.
22 Annual Report for the Session 1950–51, 13. The two PG vases have been fully published by Catling, R. W. V., BSA 84 (1989), 177–85Google Scholar.
23 Worthy of note are some remarkable similarities between the Empedocles vases (A298–306) and the Kynosarges group: e.g., in MG II, between the amphoriskos A299 and the miniature cauldron K12, with the same early and rare variant of the quatrefoil; and, in LG II A, the same preference for elaborately decorated pitchers. One is tempted to wonder whether G. Empedocles may have acquired at least part of the finds originally claimed by the landowner from the Kynosarges excavations of 1896–7.