Acknowledgements. I am most grateful to the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens for permission to publish this material. Many thanks are due to Dr E. French for inviting me to study the pottery and for providing the photographs as well as much information, to Dr K. Demakopoulou, Dr K. Kilian and Messrs R. Docter, W. Regter and G. Strietman for help of varying kinds, and to Mrs A. Traga for preparing the original pottery drawings.

Abbreviations in addition to those in standard use:

MDP Mountjoy, P.A., Mycenaean Decorated Pottery. SIMA 53 (1986)Google Scholar

MPVP E. Vermeule and V. Karageorghis, Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting (1982.)

Slenczka Slenczka, E., Figürlich bemalte Keramik aus Tiryns. Tiryns VII (1974).Google Scholar

¹ Much of the pottery found in the excavations was included in MPVP; cf. also two forthcoming publications: one by J.A. Sakellarakis on the pictorial material in the National Museum at Athens (CVA fascicle); the other by me on the ca. 180 pieces from the recent excavations in the Citadel House area (fascicule in the Well Built Mycenae series, edited by W.D. Taylour, E. French, K.A. Wardle).

² Full designations of the sherds:

1 54–804 House of Sphinxes area, Clearing over the Terrace Wall in Room 5, South, Unit 137; pot range: LH I > Hellenistic.

2 52–640 Prehistoric Cemetery IX, S. Extension (B), Unit 84; pot range: ‘masses of sherds’ > IIIB.

3 52–1 Terrace above the Cyclopean Terrace Building, Field surface.

4 52–315 House of Stirrup Jars, North Trial Cutting, below 0.30 m, Unit 37; pot range: Mycenaean > Hellenistic.

5 52>557 Cyclopean Terrace Building, Trench G. Level 8, Surface (=51/13).

6 53–10 House of the Oil Merchant, S. Annexe, Room 1, Cyclopean Terrace Wall Clearing, Unit 25; pot range: Mycenaean > Hellenistic.

³ For tufted mane, see Crouwel, J.H., Chariots and other Means of Land Transport in Bronze Age Greece. Allard Pierson Series 3 (1981) 37f.Google Scholar

⁴ Cf. Demakopoulou, K. and Crouwel, J.H., BSA 79 (1984) 38s.v. no. 1.Google Scholar

⁵ MPVP xi.16, 21–22, 25, 28.

⁶ Kilian, K., AA 1982, 412 with fig. 26.Google Scholar For slashed ridges, see MDP 174.

⁷ See MDP 174 with fig. 224 s.v. FS 282 (‘carinated type’).

⁸ This fragment was described, but not illustrated by Taylour, , BSA 50 (1955) 228 no. 54.Google Scholar

⁹ Cf. MPVP V.29 (two wrestling or boxing men, with flower motif in between them, on amphoroid krater fragment from Enkomi); for other confronted men, see MPVP v.14, 31–32 (Cyprus), ix.17–18 (Mycenae).

¹⁰ See e.g. MPVP ix.i (Corinth), 2 (our chariot krater, a), x.1 (Tiryns), also v.4, 7–8, 10, 14–15, 17, 19, 23, 28, 31–32, 37–38 (all from Cyprus).

¹¹ See esp. Younger, J.G., AJA 80 (1976) 125–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tamvaki, A., BSA 69 (1974) 277–82.Google Scholar For vase paintings, see MPVP iii.3, 31, V.48, 50, ix.18.1.

¹² MPVP ix. 18.1 (autopsy confirms the attribution to a conical rhyton, FS 199).

¹³ MPVP ix.i; Vermeule, E. in Corinthiaca. Studies in Honor of D.A. Amyx (ed. Del Chiaro, M.A., 1986) 81–87Google Scholar; cf. Rystedt, E., Op Ath 16 (1986) 106 with figs. 7–8Google Scholar (the proposed interpretation of this and other figures in similar position as runners is unlikely).

¹⁴ FM 3:7–8, 11–14; also MPVP v.41, 44–46, 51–52, 73–74 (all from Cyprus), viii.12 (Mycenae), 19 (Berbati), ix.21 (Tiryns; fragment attributed to the painter of v. 73–74 from Cyprus). A particularly good parallel for our bull is seen on a deep bowl krater from the so-called West Slope deposit of LH IIIB:2 at Tiryns, see MPVP ix.20; Slenczka no. 78 with pl. 13:1, 2a–b.

¹⁵ MPVP viii.19 (part of small, closed vessel from Mycenae).

¹⁶ A pictorial fragment from Tiryns (Nauplia Museum 14341; Ht. 0.077; W. 0.046; Th. 0.009–0.011; fair fabric; smoothed out; inside unpainted; reddish paint; flat wall somewhat narrowing upwards) was tentatively identified as from a pinax in Slenczka no. 120 with pl. 8:2g (cf. however, MPVP ix.49: rhyton or stirrup jar?).

¹⁷ For LH IIIB alabastra, see MDP 99f. with figs. 118–9 s.v. FS 85 and 94, also 125 s.v. FS 94.

¹⁸ MPVP ix.108; Slenczka no. 145 with fig. 16 and pl. 27:1a–b.

¹⁹ See French, E., BSA 66 (1971) 167–173Google Scholar; Tamvaki, A., BSA 68 (1973) 246–56.Google Scholar For chairs, see recently Hermann, H.-V., Boreas 5 (1982) 59–65Google Scholar, and Amandry, P. in ΦΙΛΙΑ ΕΠΗ (Festschrift Mylonas, G.E., 1986) 167–75.Google Scholar

²⁰ See also MDP 159 with fig. 200:11, 155 with fig. 200:9. For the Close Style, see esp. MP 571–5; Sherratt, E.S., The Pottery of LH IIIC and its Significance (D. Phil, dissertation, University of Oxford, 1981) 71–4Google Scholar; MDP 155f, 158–60, 169, 177f.

²¹ MPVP xi. 100, 110; also Schachermeyr, F., Die älgäische Frühzeit 4. Griechenland im Zeitalter der Wanderungen (1980) pl. 10:e–f.Google Scholar

²² See also MPVP esp. xi.98–119, 124–5, 127, 141, 145; MDP figs. 200:1, 5, 216, 228:1 (birds). MPVP x.84–87, xi.125, 145; MDP figs. 200:4–5; 226, 228:3, 233:1, 4 (fish).

²³ MPVP xi.116, 119; also Schachermeyr, op. cit. (n. 21) pl. 8:c.

²⁴ MPVP xi.42 (woman on the Warrior Krater from Mycenae), cf. xi.65 (possible female figure in long robe with sphinxes on contemporary krater fragment from Levkandi).

²⁵ See also MDP figs. 200:30–32, 224:2, 225:1, 4–7, 228:1.

²⁶ See also MDP 160 with fig. 200:31–32.

²⁷ See MDP 179f. with fig. 232 s.v. FS 291; also a.o. Iakovides, Sp., Perati. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. Occasional Paper 8 (1980) fig. 8 (s.v. lekanai).Google Scholar

²⁸ A set of krater fragments showing an unharnessed galloping horse in silhouette and with details in added white, from a trial trench on the so-called Atreus Ridge (Nauplia Museum 11532), has usually been attributed to LH III, see Wace, A.J.B., BSA 51 (1956) 118f.Google Scholar with fig. 6 and pl. 26; MPVP ix.5. It cannot, however, be matched by Mycenaean horse representations and a post-Bronze Age date is more likely, see Crouwel, op. cit. (n. 3) 154. Similar pottery of Archaic date has been found at Tiryns (information Dr E. French) and Argos (krater fragment with added white on dark horse, on display in the Argos Museum).

²⁹ Personal examination (August 1987) shows that there are three such (fragmentary) vases and not two, as previously reported. They are remarkably similar in shape and decoration, though they vary in size.

³⁰ The map is based on that illustrated in Wace, A.J.B.et. al., Excavations at Mycenae 1939–1955. BSA Suppl. 12 (ed. French, E.), p. viii.Google Scholar

³¹ The area now known as Perseia (W) Trench L was excavated by W.D. Taylour in 1952 and 1953 and published by him in BSA 50 (1955) 209–27 as the Great Poros Wall (see pl. 36 for plan of area). It includes Trenches VIII and IX of the Prehistoric Cemetery Central South as well as the actual Persia Trench L, see French, E., BSA 64 (1969) 71fGoogle Scholar; also BSA 58 (1963) 50f. There can be little doubt that our nos. e–i, from earlier excavations, derive from the same area.

³² This is well illustrated by the material from recent excavations in the Citadel House area at Mycenae and in the lower citadel and elsewhere at Tiryns. The pictorial pottery from Tiryns is currently being prepared for publication by Dr W. Günnter.

³³ This is in marked contrast to Cyprus, where most Mycenaean pictorial pottery was found in funerary contexts.

³⁴ BSA 50 (1955) 221.

³⁵ French, E., BSA 61 (1967) 216–30Google Scholar; also personal information. A different cultic function is reflected by a large pictorial krater from the settlement at Berbati, also in the Argolid; sunk into the floor of Room K and with a base intentionally pieced, it was probably used as a libation vessel, see Åkerström, Å., Berbati 2 (1987) 33 f no. 135 with fig. 7 and pl. 23Google Scholar; also in Problems in Greek Prehistory (forthcoming).

³⁶ See MDP 42 with fig. 45 s.v. FS 87, cf. 51 (shape not attested in LH IIIA:1).

³⁷ Fragment b (Plate 4c; Ht. c. 0.076; W. c. 0.066; Th. 0.012–0.016; whitish slip on outside; black paint; inside unpainted; surface scratched; traces of preliminary sketch in front of chariot horse neck) can be attributed to a deep bowl krater (FS 282) of this period because of its great thickness and heavily gritted, so-called oatmeal fabric; for this fabric, see Sherratt, op. cit. (n. 20) 56; also Rutter, J., The Late Helladic IIIB and IIIC Periods at Korakou and Gonia in the Corinthia (doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1974) 15.Google Scholar

³⁸ See MPVP and Slenczka. The same is true for the new material from the Citadel House area at Mycenae and the Lower Citadel at Tiryns referred to in nn. 1, 32.

³⁹ Fragment m: Ht. c. 0.09; W. c. 0.10; Th. 0.005–0.006; Diam. rim 0.20; well levigated, buff clay; buff slip on outside; black paint, short everted rim, painted inside and out; rest of inside unpainted.

⁴⁰ See MPVP s.v. viii.I (Mycenae pyxis); P.P. Betancourt, The History of Minoan Pottery (1985) fig. 120: top right and bottom (pyxis from Alatsomouri near Gournia by same painter); also Niemeyer, W.D., Die Palastkeramik von Knossos. Archäologische Forschungen 13 (1985) 126 with fig. 61.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Yon, M. and Caubet, A., Kition-Bamboula III (1985) no. 310 with figs. 67–68Google Scholar (tentatively attributed to a jug, but more likely belonging to an amphoroid krater).

⁴² Fragment c: Ht. c. 0.07; W. c. 0.054; Th. 0.009–0.01. Rather coarse, greyish-buff clay; pinkish-buff slip outside; inside unpainted; red paint. For parallels, see MPVP ix.49, 51–70.

⁴³ MPVP viii. 14 (our n) and iv.6 (Enkomi), see also pp. 28, 175 (Painter 4).

⁴⁴ MPVP viii.31 (our o–q), 30 (Mycenae), 29 (Thebes), see also p. 177 (Painter 29).

⁴³ See above nn. 13–14.

⁴⁶ See above n. 20. The term Close Style is used here to refer to a highly ornate style with carefully drawn detailed motifs filling all or most available space, mainly on small vases of fine, thin fabric. Exceptionally, the term also applies to the large four-handled jar of coarse, ‘Oatmeal’ fabric from Mycenae, , see MPVP xi.119.Google Scholar