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Prehistoric Remains on Calymnus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

In March, 1947, as Antiquities Officer of the British Military Administration, Dodecanese, I examined the spoil earth from a well dug a few years before in the valley of Vathy on Calymnus; a previous visit had shown that it contained prehistoric potsherds. The well had reached, at about nine metres down, the remains of a village of late neolithic and early Bronze Age date. No trace of the strata of occupation was found in situ, but the amount of pottery in the spoil heap compared with the size of the shaft did not indicate that those strata were thick. The neolithic wares included pieces of rather thin polished pottery, silvery-grey, greyishbrown or reddish in colour, seldom of a uniform tint. Such pottery is, in surface and colours, not unlike late neolithic from Knossos, but it is less thick. A piece of a large handle of round section and polished red surface, decorated with knobs at intervals along the convex edge, was found. This type of decoration on a similar handle is paralleled in Stratum I. at Lianokladhi. The Bronze Age pottery, mostly grey or black in colour, is more or less rough in texture. Very little similar to the black polished wares of Thermi I appeared, but a few examples of striated ware, and of incised decoration, were found. There was also part of a spoon covered with red wash decoration, and sherds ornamented with the addition of a ribbon of clay, pressed flat at intervals, and with imitation rivet-heads. Simply shaped legs from tripod or other vessels were found, and flat solid handles placed rising from the rim and shaped with two points or horns. Another find consisted of part of the rim of a large vessel with internal ledge handles and a row of holes pierced just below the rim. Handles included both ribbon and round (in section) varieties, one type of ribbon handle being similar to a characteristic Cypriote type of handle. Two flat bases are paralleled in Crete and Hissarlik. A plain black single conical spindle whorl is paralleled at Thermi.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1947

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References

page 128 note 1 Wace and Thompson, Prehistoric Thessaly, fig. 121.

page 128 note 2 But sherds of ware similar to Thermi I pottery were found in the cave at the entrance to Vathy creek by the Italians many years ago. Cf. Clara Rhodos I.

page 128 note 3 Incised decoration included dots, for parallels to which see Schliemann Ilios, figs. 32, 45, 55, and BSA XXX, fig. 6, nos. 23, 24. Another variety of dotted indentation (possibly done with a toothed stamp) found at Vathy is illustrated by Mosso, Le origini della civiltd Mediterranea, fig. 123 (a bell-beaker). This rare style of decoration is found also in Mesopotamia at an early date—Starr Nuzi Pl. 44, I; and in Macedonia, , Heurtley, , Prehistoric Macedonia p. 140Google Scholar.

page 128 note 4 For parallels see Evans, PM I, 57 and Seager, Mochlos, 93.

page 128 note 5 Compare Blegen, Korakou, fig. 3, no. 4.

page 128 note 6 As in BSA XXX, fig. 5, etc.

page 128 note 7 As in BMC Vases I, part 2, fig. 12; BSA XXX. fig. 5, and Lamb, Thermi Pl. XXXV, 8. Cf. Heidenreich in AM LX–LXI, fig. 3.

page 128 note 8 As in Heurtley, op. cit., 181, fig. 55. Similarly decorated ware occurs in Azarbaijan (early third millennium, not yet published). Internal ledges occur at Byblos (Berytus III, 129) and in Egypt (of predynastic date), examples being in the Cairo Museum.

page 128 note 9 For example BMC Vases I, part 2, fig. 7, etc., and Gjerstad Studies on Prehistoric Cyprus, 92, no. 3.

page 128 note 10 Seager, op. cit., fig. 48, no 34 and Schliemann, op. cit., figs. 48, 49, 51.