Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T04:18:37.675Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representations of a shrine on a Mycenaean chariot krater from Kalavasos–Ayios Dhimitrios, Cyprus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Louise Steel
Louise Steel
Affiliation:
University College London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An important tomb group was discovered during the 1992 excavations of the Late Cypriot II town at Kalavasos–Ayios Dhimitrios. The tomb contained large quantities of Mycenaean ceramics, ranging in date between LH III A 2 and III B. Of particular importance was a chariot krater with the representation on both sides of a shrine, surmounted by horns of consecration, housing a seated female figure. As yet the iconography is unmatched among the known corpus of Mycenaean pictorial vases, though it appears to be related to Minoan–Mycenaean iconography known from other media.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 89 , November 1994 , pp. 201 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1994

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

1 I am grateful to Prof. I. Todd and Alison South for their permission to publish this krater, and to the staff of the Larnaca District Museum for facilitating my study of the krater. I would also like to thank Professor Coldstream, Dr L. French, and Dr C. Morris for their helpful comments and suggestions. Abbreviations in addition to those in standard use:

Acts = Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium ‘The Relations between Cyprus and Crete, ca. 2000–500 BC’ (1979)

KAD ii = South, A. et al. , Kalavasos–Ayios Dhimitrios, ii: Ceramics, Objects, Tombs, Specialist Studies (Vasilikos Valley Project), 3 (SIMA 71. 3; 1989)Google Scholar

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

2 South, A., in RDAC 1984, 25, pl. 5Google Scholar; Masson, E., in KAD ii. 38–9Google Scholar, fig. 60, nos. I–IV.

3 South, A., RDAC 1980, 22–53Google Scholar; 1982, 60–8; 1983, 92–116; 1984, 14–40; 1988, 223–8; 1991, 131–9; 1992, 133–45; ead., in Early Society in Cyprus (1989), 315–23; ead., in Cyprus at the Close of the Late Bronze Age (1984), 11–17; KAD ii.

4 South 1988 (n. 3), 228, fig. 2, pl. 35; ead. and Russell, P., in Zerner, C. (ed.), Wace and Blegen: Pottery as Evidence for Trade in the Aegean Bronze Age, 1939–1989 (Amsterdam, 1993), 303–10.Google Scholar

5 Russell, P., in KAD ii. 7 f.Google Scholar, pl. 4, figs. 11–12; South and Russell (n. 4).

6 Eriksson, K. O., Red Lustrous Wheel-made Ware (SIMA 103; 1993).Google Scholar

7 KAD ii. 8. The origin of the numerous Mycenaean pictorial vases found in Cyprus has been much debated. The two principal viewpoints are (1) that these vessels are found in such large quantities in Cyprus that they must have been manufactured locally, possibly by Mycenaean potters who had settled on the island; or, conversely, (2) that the majority were imports from the Aegean, though by the 13th cent. BC Cypriot potters may have begun to imitate such vessels. Chemical analyses of Mycenaean ceramics, principally by the Oxford Laboratory and the BSA Fitch Laboratory have tended to support the latter argument. See Catling, H. W.et al., BSA 58 (1963), 94 ff.Google Scholar; Catling, H. W. and Millett, A., BSA 60 (1965), 212 ffGoogle Scholar; Catling, H. W.et al., RDAC 1978, 70 ff.Google Scholar

8 All dimensions are in centimetres unless otherwise stated.

9 Furumark, , MP (1972), 243.Google Scholar

10 This may be paralleled by a krater from Enkomi, MPVP v. 1.

11 I am grateful to Professor J. N. Coldstream for this suggestion.

12 MP 243.

13 MPVP 26 ff.

14 I am grateful to Dr C. Morris for this observation.

15 Crouwel, J. H., Chariots and Other Means of Land Transport in Bronze Age Greece (Amsterdam, 1981), 63 ff.Google Scholar

16 Crouwel (n. 15), 112 ff; M. A. Littauer and J. H. Crouwel, ‘Chariots and harness in Mycenaean vase painting’, in MPVP, fig. 1.

17 Crouwel (n. 15), 37.

18 MPVP iii. 17, 21; iv. 1, 3, 19, 29.

19 I am grateful to Dr C. Morris for this observation.

20 Langdon, S., AJA 93 (1989), 187 ff.CrossRefGoogle ScholarInv. 27.319: Ugaritica, v. 756 f., pls 3–6; vii. 346 f., fig. 54; MPVP xiii. 28. Inv. RS 25.201: Ugaritica, v, pl. 3; vii. 319 f., fig. 41. 1; MPVP xiii. 29; Ugaritica, vii, fig. 41. 2.

21 Ugaritica, v. 756 f., pls 3–6; vii. 346 f., fig. 54; MPVP xiii. 28.

22 Ugaritica, v, pl. 3; vii. 319 f., fig. 41. 1–2; MPVP xiii. 29.

23 Langdon (n. 20), 190 ff.

24 Ibid. 195 f.

25 MPVP v. 2.

26 MPVP v. 3.

27 MPVP 23 f, iii. 29.

28 MPVP iii. 12.

29 MPVP 18.

30 MPVP xi. 50.

31 MPVP iii. 10.

32 Ugaritica, vii, fig. 41. 1–2.

33 Langdon (n. 20), 189 f.

34 MPVP viii. 33.

35 PM ii, fig. 371; Immerwahr, S., Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age (Pennsylvania, 1990)Google Scholar, fig. 34 e, pl. 22.

36 Lang, M., Pylos, ii (1969), pl. 78i, rGoogle Scholar, Immerwahr (n. 35), fig. 35 c.

37 Long, C. R., The Ayia Triadha Sarcophagus: A Study of Late Minoan and Mycenaean Funerary Practices and Beliefs (SIMA 41; 1974), pls 30–1.Google Scholar

38 Younger, J. G., The Iconography of Late Minoan and Mycenaean Sealstones and Finger Rings (Bristol, 1988), 276 ff.Google Scholar; CMS i. 191; PM iv. 2, fig. 917, pl. 65; JHS 22 (1902), fig. 1, pl. 6.

39 CMS i. 86, 108, 279, 410; ii. 3, 7; ASA viii–ix, fig. 152, pl. xiv, no. 136.

40 PM iv. 2, fig. 971.

41 Schliemann, H., Mycenae (New York, 1880), 267, fig. 423Google Scholar; Karo, G., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (Munich, 1930), 74, nos. 242–4, pl. 18Google Scholar; id., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (Munich, 1933), 46, no. 26.

42 Kourouniotis, K., Arch. Eph. 1906, 223–4, pl. 14.Google Scholar

43 PAE 1963, 185, pls 152 b, 153, 154 a; Shaw, J. W., AJA 82 (1978), 432 ff.Google Scholar, figs. 5–8.

44 Kr. Chron. 17 (1963), pl. 15 t; Shaw (n. 43), fig. 10.

45 PM ii. 2, figs. 526, 532.

46 PAE 1952, 604–9, fig. 19; Shaw (n. 43), figs. 12–13.

47 Maier, F., in RDAC 1975, pl. 11. 1–2Google Scholar; id., in Acts, pl. 34. 1.

48 Schliemann, H., Mykenae (1878), 180, 267, 308Google Scholar; Blinkenberg, C., ‘Le temple de Paphos’, Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, historisk-filologiske meddelelser, 9.2 (1924), 3–37Google Scholar; Westholm, A., in Act. A. 4 (1933), 201–36Google Scholar, at p. 226; Maier, F., RDAC 1975, 79Google Scholar; id., in Acts, 228.

49 Maier, F., in Acts, 233.Google Scholar

50 CBMW, 216 f.; Catling, H. W., RDAC 1984, 72 ff.Google Scholar