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Knossos 1951–61: Protogeometric and Geometric Pottery from the Town

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

J. N. Coldstream
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Extract

This is the first of three articles dealing with the settlement pottery of post-Minoan Knossos, dating from the tenth to the second century B.C., and coming from the British School's excavations of 1951–61. The most prolific source of this pottery is the major excavation on both sides of the Royal Road, directed by M. S. F. Hood in 1957–61. Here the post-Minoan overlay was in places over five metres deep, and good house-deposits were recovered of the Protogeometric, late Classical, and Hellenistic periods; there is also an excellent well-deposit of late Archaic times. For the other periods, the site produced only thin and scrappy rubbish-deposits, not associated with any contemporary architecture, and therefore less well stratified. But many of the gaps in the Royal Road sequence are more effectively filled by a number of well-deposits from minor excavations on the periphery of the town. Consequently, with the sole exception of the sixth century B.C. (which is still very meagrely represented), it is now possible to get a reasonably clear picture of the domestic pottery at every stage in the life of Hellenic Knossos.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 67 , November 1972 , pp. 63 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1972

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References

Acknowledgements. First, I should like to thank Mr. M. S. F. Hood, who, while Director of the British School at Athens, kindly invited me to undertake the study of this material during my tenure of the Macmillan Studentship in 1957–60. For the award of this Studentship, for facilities of study at Knossos, and for a grant to cover the expenses of publication, I am grateful to the School's Managing Committee. The cataloguing of the pottery in situ was completed with the aid of two travel grants from the Central Research Fund of London University during the summers of 1963 and 1964.

Of the drawings, Figs. I and 3 are by Miss Susan Wood (now Mrs. Krafft), and some of the profiles are by Miss Heather Scott. The final tracings are the work of Mrs. Patricia Clarke and Miss Susan Bird.

Abbreviations, other than those in general use:

AR = Archaeological Reports (JHS).

CCO = Boardman, J., The Cretan Collection in Oxford: the Dictaean Cave and Iron Age Crete (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar.

CGA = Courbin, P., La Céramique géométrique de l'Argolide (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar.

DAG = Snodgrass, A. M., The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh, 1971)Google Scholar.

GGP = Coldstream, J. N., Greek Geometric Pottery (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

Gortina = Rizza, G., Il santuario sull'Acropoli di Gortina (Rome, 1968)Google Scholar.

Knossos Survey = Hood, M. S. F., Archaeological Survey of the Knossos Area (London, 1957)Google Scholar.

LMS = Desborough, V. R., The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar.

PGP = Desborough, V. R., Protogeometric Pottery (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar.

PH. = Preserved Height.

PL. = Preserved Length.

1 Knossos Survey, immediately to the west of nos. 122 and 123. On the excavation see Hood's preliminary reports in AR 1958, 21–2Google Scholar; AR 1959, 19–20Google Scholar; AR 1960, 22–4Google Scholar; AR 1961, 26–7Google Scholar. The detailed account of the stratigraphy and architecture, Minoan and post-Minoan, is to appear in another volume.

2 JHS lxxii (1952) 108Google Scholar; Knossos Survey, no. 39. Well 13 (early Roman) and Well 12 (8th–gth centuries A.D.) have already been published by Hayes, J. W., BSA lxvi (1971) 250–2, 263–70, 274–5Google Scholar.

3 Fortetsa, xvi.

4 Mentioned in AR 1959, 20Google Scholar. For the details which follow I am indebted to the dig records kept by Mr. J. F. Lazenby, who was in charge of the RR:S site during the 1958 and 1959 seasons.

5 See AR 1961, 27 (6)Google Scholar. These trials were supervised by Mr. J. Ellis Jones, to whose dig records I am indebted for these details. An early Roman deposit from the upper levels of these trials has already been published by Hayes, J. W., BSA lxvi (1971) 252, 270–3Google Scholar.

6 Fortetsa 186 ff.

7 Dipping was already practised in L.M. IIIC: cf. BSA lxii (1967) 261 no. 3Google Scholar, fig. 3, pl. 48 (Knossos); BSA lv (1960) 13Google Scholar, fig. 8.2, pl. 5b (Karphi). But spattering seems to be new in EPG.

8 PGP 49, 53; pl. 7, 545(15) and 1070(34). On the absolute dating, ibid. 294.

9 LMS 241; accepted by Snodgrass, DAG 118, 134.

10 See Desborough, , PGP 237, 247–9Google Scholar; also Coldstream, , GGP 234Google Scholar.

11 Snodgrass, , DAG 158Google Scholar, lowers the date to c. 925 B.C., but assumes (as Brock did) that Tombs VI and XI at Fortetsa represent the earliest EPG. It was for these same tombs that Brock suggested his upper date of c. 970 B.C., which may in this case be a little too high, being based on the rather high dating for the end of Attic PC suggested by Kraiker, in Kerameikos i. 164Google Scholar.

12 Fortetsa 146–7.

13 Tzedakis, , PAE 1968, 136–7Google Scholar, pl. 136α.

14 BSA lv (1960) 159–60Google Scholar nos. 1–4, pl. 42.

15 Furumark, , MP motif 72Google Scholar, 7–8. The ornament on our C 7 partakes of both tassel and bracket.

16 SCE iv. 2, fig. 7.2Google Scholar.

17 For other such legacies see Karageorghis, , 2nd Cretological Congress in Chania (Athens, 1967) 180–5Google Scholar.

18 Fortetsa 152–3.

19 e.g. BSA lx (1965) pl. 84Google Scholar.

20 Fortetsa 162–3.

21 Fortetsa 161.

22 Ibid. Type (ii).

23 Fortetsa 166, Class (A).

24 Ibid. Class (B. i).

25 Vrokastro pl. 31, from Karakovilia, Chamber Tomb 1.

26 Brock's original diagnosis of Knossian EG (Fortetsa 143–4) depended largely on style; but for other homogeneous EG groups see GGP 239, and for their chronology GGP 241.

27 To be published as Deposit P in the third and final article of this series.

28 Excavate d in 1951 by Miss A. Furness (now Dr, Ozanne), from whose dig records the following details are derived.

29 AR 1961, 27Google Scholar; GGP 245. For the stratigraphical details I am indebted to the dig records kept by Mr. J. Ellis Jones, who was in charge of the site.

30 Fortetsa 186–7.

31 Boardman, , CCO 84–5 no. 379Google Scholar.

32 Cf. my remarks on the Stopford Well, BSA lv (1960) 170Google Scholar.

33 Délos xv pls. 34–6; cf. GGP 174.

34 Fortetsa 190, Class C.

35 See GGP 240 pl. 52c (EG); 243 pl. 53h (MG); 250 pl. 55h (LG).

36 Several pieces of large EO amphorae came from the excavations of 1967 and 1968.

37 Fortetsa pl. 62 no. 1044.

38 Gortina 16 fig. 24a.

39 e.g. GGP pl. 52d; BSA pl. 25, no. 19.

40 BSA lv (1960) 163–4Google Scholar nos. 39–40; 39 = GGP pl. 54e = FIG. 6 here.

41 Cf. GGP, pls. 17j, 20a (Corinthian); pls. 27a, 28e (Argive).

42 See Ridgway, D., StEtr xxxv (1968) 3 ffGoogle Scholar.

43 See below, G 119 (Attic); Sanctuary of Demeter at Knossos (BSA Suppl., forthcoming) ch. ii. K 4 (Corinthian).

44 BICS xvi (1971) 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

45 Boardman, , CCO 110–11, 134–5Google Scholar.

46 But here, too, there are chronological difficulties. Although rod-tripods were known in Crete, the three examples so far recorded are from contexts much earlier than LG: see Catling, H. W., Cypriot Bronzework in the Mycenaean World (Oxford, 1964) 198–9 nos. 18–20Google Scholar. In Athens, however, a rod-tripod was found in a grave of LGIB (Catling, op. cit. 194 no. 6; for the date, GGP 46).

47 BSA xxxv (1934–1935) pl. 26.2Google Scholar. Miss Benton, ibid. 105 n. 6, considers the mark on the tripod-leg to be accidental.

48 Ibid. 105 no. 12, fig. 13b.

49 Ibid. 102 ff. nos. 1 (Paris A 547), 2, 3, 8, 9, 15, 17, 23.

50 Ibid. 106 n. 4.

51 Délos xv pl. 38 Bb 35, pl. 40 Bb 50; AM liv (1929) 154 figs. 6, 7Google Scholar.

52 AAA ii. 1 (1969) 27–9 figs. 6, 7Google Scholar; BICS xvi (1971) 1 ff.Google Scholar, pl. 1 b, c. The latter article supersedes my account of the Cesnola Painter and Workshop in GGP 172–4.

53 Villa Well, excavated 1959. Its seventh-century fill will be published as Deposit H in the next article of this series.

54 I mention this vase by kind permission of Mr. D. E. L. Haynes, Keeper of the Greek and Roman Department.