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The Mycenaean ‘Window-Crater’ in the British Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

V. Karageorghis
V. Karageorghis
Affiliation:
Cyprus Museum
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Extract

This fragmentary vase was discovered in 1895 in a tomb at Curium by the British Museum Expedition (Turner Bequest) and was first published in the Excavations in Cyprus. Since then references to it have been made by various scholars, chiefly because of its unusual decoration with female figures inside ladder-pattern frames; these frames have been commonly interpreted as windows', hence the name ‘window-crater’.

The same tomb in which the ‘window-crater’ had been discovered was re-excavated by the expedition of the University Museum, Philadelphia, in 1939, and thirty-five new fragments of the same vase were found. These have now been restored to the main body of the crater in the British Museum, and it has been suggested that in its more complete form it should be re-examined and published with better illustration.

A detailed description of its form and fabric is given in BMC Vases and the CVA It is probably the largest of its kind (height, 43·5 cm.; diameter, 43·2 cm.); the fabric represents Mycenaean ware at its best: buff pinkish clay, dark red lustrous paint. Each panel between the two handles is decorated with a chariot scene flanked with groups of female figures.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , November 1957 , pp. 269 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 Murray and others: Excavations in Cyprus, p. 73, Fig. 127; see also BMC Vases i, Pt. ii, 78 Google Scholar, fig. 132 = C391, also CVA.GB Fasc. i, Pl. 6, No. 9, p. 7.

2 SirEvans, A.: Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, JHS xxi (1901), p. 111 Google Scholar; BMC Vases xvi, 11.2; Casson: Ancient Cyprus, Pl. iv; Furumark: MP. 443 f.

3 University Museum Bulletin, Vol. 8 (1940)Google Scholar, No. 1, p. 9, Pl. ivd.

4 Mr. A. H. S. Megaw, Director of Antiquities in Cyprus, and Dr. P. Dikaios, Curator of the Cyprus Museum, kindly allowed me to take these fragments to London where, with the permission of Mr. B. Ashmole, then Keeper of the Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, they have been restored to the crater. Dr. J. Benson, who is studying the Mycenaean material of the University Museum Expedition, has given me permission to refer to the new fragments. To the above-mentioned scholars I express here my thanks for their co-operation and generosity.

5 Loc. cit.

6 Cf. the British Museum crater C373; the same idea appears later in Greek Geometric vase-painting of the pictorial style.

7 Cf. Evans, : PM. iv, p. 829, figs. 810–11Google Scholar.

8 Evans, : JHS xxii, 111 Google Scholar.

9 Illustrated in the University Museum Bulletin, loc. cit. Pl. ivd.

10 A note and a photograph of it have already appeared in Fasti Archaeologici vii (1954), 132 f., fig. 44Google Scholar.

11 When the vase is published in greater detail the identification of its painter will become easier.

12 The artist's desire for symmetry has already been pointed out by Furumark, , MP. 445 Google Scholar.

13 This association has already been made by other scholars: Cf. Furumark, op. cit., p. 445 and notes 1–3.

14 JHS xxi, p. 111 Google Scholar.

15 Unless the flower could be interpreted as an offering, but one of them is smelling it! A parallel of a woman holding flowers is supplied by the fresco painting from Thebes, see Lorimer, H. L.: Homer and the Monuments (London 1950), Pl. xxviii, 1Google Scholar; for women offering flowers (lilies?) to a Goddess see Nilsson, M. Minoan-Mycenaean Religion (2nd edn.), p. 347, fig. 158Google Scholar. See also new gem from Pylos, LH II? ILN 27, iv, 1957, 690.

16 Furumark, : MP, p. 445, n. 3Google Scholar.

17 Cf. BMC Vases, p. xvi, n. 2.

18 A narrow ladder-band is also observed on the Chieftain's Vase of steatite from Hagia Triada, where the shield-bearers are separated from the other two figures.

19 op. cit., p. 445, n.4.

20 This suggestion I owe to Mr. H. Catling, M.A., who kindly discussed with me several points of this note.

21 For references, see Lorimer: op. cit., p. 365; she rightly believes that these frescoes were made on the mainland in the fourteenth century by Minoan artists after the sack of Cnossos.

22 A. J. B. Wace: Mycenae, figs. 55–6 and 101–3.

23 Syria x (1929), Pl. lxiGoogle Scholar; Ugarit was in contact with Crete already in the M.M. period. Cf. Cl. Schaeffer, : Ugaritica ii, p. 51, 53 et passim Google Scholar.

24 Cf. Furumark: MP. fig. 25, Mot. 1: 1, 3–10

25 Evans, : PM iii, Pl. xvi, fig. 28Google Scholar.

26 Lorimer, op. cit., fig. 53c.

27 Ibid., p. 366.

28 Furumark, : CMP, p. 88 Google Scholar.

29 Dikaios, P.: Guide to the Cyprus Museum (2nd edn.), p. 171: 9–10Google Scholar; Lorimer, op. cit., p. 366, says that no such figurines have been found in Cyprus!

30 Schaeffer, : Ugaritica ii, fig. 97: 18–19Google Scholar.

31 Furumark, : CMP, p. 88 Google Scholar.

32 Cf. Daniel, : AJA xlvi (1942), 121 Google Scholar, places it between 1400–1370; similar date is given by Furumark: Myc IIIA: 2e, p. 443.