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The Late Helladic IIIC Pottery of Xeropolis (Lefkandi), a Summary1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Mervyn Popham  and
Elizabeth Milburn
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Extract

We have attempted below to define three main phases in the development of the Late Helladic IIIC pottery of Lefkandi. The first two phases we have further subdivided into an early and late stage. We recognize the dangers of over-classification, principally in that it may obscure the main differences between each phase. In this case, however, the danger seemed worth the risk in that Lefkandi has produced unusually deep and well-stratified deposits of IIIC pottery, such as are unlikely to have accumulated or to have survived on most sites of this period. This is not, of course, to say that the stages which we believe to be recognizable at our site are necessarily valid elsewhere. But the extent to which they are generally applicable will appear only after they have first been defined and then tested against the finds from other excavations with stratified deposits of this period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 66 , November 1971 , pp. 333 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1971

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References

2 PrelReport 11–15. Trial IV/V and Trial W produced evidence of a destruction contemporary with the Phase 1 b disaster in the main area, and Trials C and W of a destruction in Phase 2a (see map in PrelReport, fig. 1).

3 Many of the deposits on which the charts are based consisted largely of fragmentary pottery with few whole or restorable vases. Since some of these sherds could well be earlier than die level in which they were found, we are at times in some doubt whether a particular characteristic feature continued in use into the period of that level or not. This uncertainty we have indicated by a broken line. Where we have grave doubts but did not wish entirely to ignore the evidence, we have added a question mark. In the case of deep bowls and conical bowls, ‘reserved line’ refers to the reserved line on the interior near the rim: exterior is abbreviated to ‘ext.’ and interior to ‘int.’.

We have, of course, only chosen the most obvious features which show a change; there are many others.

4 PrelReport, fig. 33.

5 Archaeological Reports, 1965–6, fig. 16.

6 For example, in Trial IV/V, tests within the house revealed walls belonging to Phase 1 which had fallen out of use and had been covered over by a floor before the 1b destruction. In Square LL of the main area, a cross wall and possible kitchen enclosure had similarly been buried below refuse long before a mudbrick wall there collapsed above it in the 1b destruction.

7 PrelReport, fig. 34.

8 Both the hand-made sherds and the Mycenaean ‘imitation’ were found in Square LL, in levels overlying IIIB structures and a IIIB passageway; they were well below the fall of mudbrick caused by the 1b destruction.

Vases possibly related to the Mycenaean version at Fig. 3, 6 are BSA xxv (1921–3) fig. 12a (the foot is wrongly restored) and PAE (1965) pl. 171c; the former is from Mycenae, the latter from Teichos Dymaion.

An Italian parallel to the hand-made version, from Leporano, , is illustrated in NSc (1963) 300, fig. 21.Google Scholar As for the other hand-made vase, illustrated in PrelReport, fig. 34, its Italian character was first pointed out by Dr. C. E. Östenberg. Parallels are quoted by Peroni, N. in Mem. Linc. ix (1960) 43Google Scholar, Olla d3. A Trojan origin for hand-made sherds at Mycenae and possibly for the Lefkandi vase is suggested by MrsFrench, E. in AA 1969, 136Google Scholar; but the Italian character of our vase is accepted by Vagnetti, L. in SMEA ix (1969) 108–9.Google Scholar

9 PrelReport, figs. 38–44. Catling, H. in AJA lxxii (1968) 41–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar publishes a pictorial sherd from Lefkandi and discusses chariot scenes.

10 Craters, Fig. 6, 1 and Plates 56, 3–4 and 55, 1, 2, and 5; amphoriskoi, Fig. 6, 2 and Plates 55, 4 and 56, 5; deep bowls, Plate 57, 1; alabastron, Plate 56, 2; stirrup-jar, Plate 56, 1; kylix, Plate 55, 3.

11 A few examples at Lefkandi could belong to the Phase 1b destruction, e.g. Fig. 4, 9 and Plate 53, 5; but in each instance there is suspicion of contamination from upper levels.

Desborough. in The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors, 117 gives references to examples from the Acropolis Fountain at Athens and from Tarsus; he adds (op. cit. 159) that the shape is popular at Emborio on Chios. Other vases of this kind have been found in the IIIC deposits on Kea and in IIIC tombs on Naxos (unpublished). Their presence in the Argolid has not so far been recorded, and there is only one instance published from the Peloponnese, found in the Tragana, tholos, AE 1914, 104Google Scholar, fig. 6, 5. Strangely, they do not seem to occur in Cyprus. Too much emphasis, however, should not yet be placed on the apparent absence of this shape in certain areas, for a rim sherd from a conical bowl is indistinguishable from a kylix rim fragment, and consequently its presence may easily be overlooked.

12 At least two animal heads have been found at Lef kandi, apparently broken off from such handles; cf. Wace, , BSA xxv (1921–1923)Google Scholar fig. 11d and Mylonas, Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, pl. 38, both from Mycenae and both seemingly IIIC.

13 Reports on the cemeteries at Lefkandi: PrelReport 23–5; Themelis, P., AAA ii (1969) 98–102Google Scholar; Archaeological Reports for 1969–70, 9–10.

14 See French, E., AA (1969) 135Google Scholar, para. 6 for similar fabric at Mycenae.

15 Cf. Plate 53, I and Fig. 5, 3 for earlier examples.

16 To date we have found no sure evidence on Xeropolis of a IIIB destruction such as befell many Mycenaean settlements. However, this should not be taken to show that there was no such destruction; levelling of the site by the IIIC occupants and builders could well have removed the evidence in the areas so far tested.

17 Broneer, , Hesperia viii (1939) 317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Wace, , BSA xxv (1921–1923) 38–60Google Scholar; obvious parallels with Phase 2a are the bowls with a reserved foot and the Close Style; but features typical there, such as the shallow angular bowls with interior bands, are seemingly unknown at Lefkandi.

19 Achaia, , principally AJA lxiv (1960) 1Google Scholar; Kephallenia, , AE (1932) 1–47.Google Scholar

20 Preliminary reports in PAE (1953–63); for the final report by Iakovides, see Addendum opposite.

21 Theocharis, , PAE (1956) 119–30Google Scholar; (1960) 49–59; (1961) 45–54.

22 See n. 18 above. The Close Style and our Phase 2a decorated wares reflect the same outlook, but are different in execution. Parallel features are: antithetic loops on hydrias (Wace, op. cit., fig. 8c and pl. xe), tassels on jugs and hydrias (pls. VI and X), lip-band cups (pl. xi), and deep bowls with a reserved foot (fig. 9e, Stratum X). There are, however, differences as given in n. 18 above and we may add the deep bowl with multiple reserved bands at the rim, which seems absent at Lefkandi.

23 Apart from the conical bowls, which have the same system of bands (Broneer, op. cit., figs. 59–60), other similarities are: craters with incised rope-pattern bands (fig. 27), vertical shell decoration in the centre panel of craters and deep bowls (fig. 33), reserved bands on deep bowls (fig. 49), twisted handles on amphoras (fig. 74), scroll pattern on closed vessels (fig. 79), and multiple banding of kylikes (fig. 57 and cf. Kea, , Hesperia xxxi (1962) pl. 102b).Google Scholar For suggestions of ‘white ware’ see op. cit. 348, ‘the surface is mealy…’, ‘a very few sherds … of greenish-buff clay’. But the Fountain deposit, like that of the Granary at Mycenae and unlike Lefkandi, contained angular shallow bowls with linear decoration.

24 Pictorial sherds, PAE (1960) figs. 4–5; hydrias and spouted crater closely resembling Lefkandi, pottery, PAE (1961) pl. 23b–c.Google Scholar Mr. Popham is grateful to Dr. and Mrs. Theocharis for discussing their material and showing him a selection of it during a short visit to Volos.

25 For mention of ‘white ware’ see Caskey, , Hesperia xxxiii (1964) 332Google Scholar, ‘… the biscuit is gritty, the surfaces lightcoloured, and the paint pale and fugitive’. For the crater, see op. cit. pl. 62g, very similar to our Plate 57, 4; for the deep bowl with reserved foot, pl. 62f; for a neck-handled white-ware amphora, pl. 62e.

We are grateful to Professor Caskey for giving us the opportunity to discuss and examine his IIIC pottery; white ware is common and conical bowls are well in evidence.

26 PAE (1960) 58; (1961) 46–8.

27 Mr. Desborough has pointed out to the authors links with Athenian sub-Mycenaean, and the duck vases whose origin may lie in Cyprus.

There is, of course, the additional problem that, so far as we know, the earliest Iron Age settlers practised from the beginning their curious custom of cremating the body in a pyre and then placing a few cremated fragments of bone together with the offerings in a cist-tomb; apparently a mixture of two traditions, cist inhumations and cremation, which they presumably had learnt elsewhere.