DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4758#0027
XXVI CATALOGUE OF VASES.
These yellow imitations were largely hand-made.1 The first appearance of
Minyan ware in Melos is dated by its association there with ' polychrome
Kamares pottery'2 (M.M. II), and its beginning must be assigned on the present
evidence to the same time in Greece and Asia Minor. The stratification at
Korakou shows that the bulk of the fabric belongs to M.H. II—III ; it occurs
also in the shaft-graves at Mycenae (L.H. I) and has been found in very small
proportion with Middle Mycenaean pottery (L.H. II).
To the same time and largely to the same localities in Greece belongs the
Dull-painted Geometric Ware (A 271-7)-'' which in some of its forms is
indistinguishable from contemporary Cycladic pottery (p. xxix). It is hand-made,
usually in coarse gritty clay of pale green or yellow colour, and painted with
very simple linear patterns. Characteristic are tall low-bellied jars with pierced
suspension handles :4 fabric and form are Cycladic, as is also the scheme of
panels around the upper part of the vase, with filling of slanting lines (cording-
patterns) or medallions. The true Helladic tradition survived in spouted
bowls with fringed bands in their decoration. Jugs are of tensile shape like the
Cycladic, and bear similar patterns of crossed lines. The native fabric also
reappeared in a finer Slipped Ware, on which the designs are smaller and mostly
curvilinear.5 Panels with fringed borders are prominent, and are probably a
local feature, but bands of spiral coils and small motives frequently repeated,
together with adaptations of Minoan shapes, show close connexion with
the Cycladic curvilinear style (p.. xxx). The first stemmed goblets belong
in this place. .Some Minyan forms were also reproduced in painted ware:
they seem to belong to Argos, and their minute angular patterns anticipate
the delicacy and precision which the fine local clay produced in Protocorinthian
pottery (A 273).
A third class of dull-painted ware has polychrome decoration with very much
simpler designs on a reddish ground. The patterns are mostly straight and
wavy lines of red and black, or small rectilinear figures filled and edged with
different colours.0 A more ambitious group bears single figures of grotesque
animals in rectangular panels. This Polychrome Style was evidently inspired by
the ' black-and-red' pottery of Melos, which in turn was a Cycladic reflection of
the contemporary Cretan style (p. xxx). A closer connexion with Minoan art,
and probably the renewal of direct Helladic contact with Crete, is seen in a
fabric which has white patterns on a black wash: these are generally the same
as the decadent and conventional motives of M.M. III.' The same patterns were
copied in ordinary dull-painted ware. So far as a chronological sequence can be
1 Korakou, p. 18.
- B.S.A., xvii, p. 17.
3 This has been called ' Aphidna ' or ' Aegina ' ware (' Matlmalerci').
4 Korakou, fig. 28.
■"' JbicL, p. 24.
• Ibid., p. 28.
; Ibid., p. 32, pi. II.
These yellow imitations were largely hand-made.1 The first appearance of
Minyan ware in Melos is dated by its association there with ' polychrome
Kamares pottery'2 (M.M. II), and its beginning must be assigned on the present
evidence to the same time in Greece and Asia Minor. The stratification at
Korakou shows that the bulk of the fabric belongs to M.H. II—III ; it occurs
also in the shaft-graves at Mycenae (L.H. I) and has been found in very small
proportion with Middle Mycenaean pottery (L.H. II).
To the same time and largely to the same localities in Greece belongs the
Dull-painted Geometric Ware (A 271-7)-'' which in some of its forms is
indistinguishable from contemporary Cycladic pottery (p. xxix). It is hand-made,
usually in coarse gritty clay of pale green or yellow colour, and painted with
very simple linear patterns. Characteristic are tall low-bellied jars with pierced
suspension handles :4 fabric and form are Cycladic, as is also the scheme of
panels around the upper part of the vase, with filling of slanting lines (cording-
patterns) or medallions. The true Helladic tradition survived in spouted
bowls with fringed bands in their decoration. Jugs are of tensile shape like the
Cycladic, and bear similar patterns of crossed lines. The native fabric also
reappeared in a finer Slipped Ware, on which the designs are smaller and mostly
curvilinear.5 Panels with fringed borders are prominent, and are probably a
local feature, but bands of spiral coils and small motives frequently repeated,
together with adaptations of Minoan shapes, show close connexion with
the Cycladic curvilinear style (p.. xxx). The first stemmed goblets belong
in this place. .Some Minyan forms were also reproduced in painted ware:
they seem to belong to Argos, and their minute angular patterns anticipate
the delicacy and precision which the fine local clay produced in Protocorinthian
pottery (A 273).
A third class of dull-painted ware has polychrome decoration with very much
simpler designs on a reddish ground. The patterns are mostly straight and
wavy lines of red and black, or small rectilinear figures filled and edged with
different colours.0 A more ambitious group bears single figures of grotesque
animals in rectangular panels. This Polychrome Style was evidently inspired by
the ' black-and-red' pottery of Melos, which in turn was a Cycladic reflection of
the contemporary Cretan style (p. xxx). A closer connexion with Minoan art,
and probably the renewal of direct Helladic contact with Crete, is seen in a
fabric which has white patterns on a black wash: these are generally the same
as the decadent and conventional motives of M.M. III.' The same patterns were
copied in ordinary dull-painted ware. So far as a chronological sequence can be
1 Korakou, p. 18.
- B.S.A., xvii, p. 17.
3 This has been called ' Aphidna ' or ' Aegina ' ware (' Matlmalerci').
4 Korakou, fig. 28.
■"' JbicL, p. 24.
• Ibid., p. 28.
; Ibid., p. 32, pi. II.