DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4758#0029
XXV111 CATALOGUK OF VASES.
Macedonia (A 81-3, A 115 : p. xxii). Like that group the West Greek bucchero
is more likely to have been derived through a Balkan channel than from Boeotia.
It seems as if there was less intercourse between the east and west of Greece
than between the Helladic and Cycladic areas. These two were indeed so
closely bound together that they cannot logically be separated ; their names must
be taken to signify two subdivisions of a Central Aegean culture rather than
independent communities like those of Thessaly and Crete.
V.—THE CYCLADES.
The sequence of Cycladic pottery has been established by the excavation
of a large town-site at Phylakopi in Melos.1 Copious material, particularly of
the earlier periods, has been obtained from lesser settlements and cemeteries
in many other islands of the group,2 but the series is only continuous at
Phylakopi. 'Even there its beginning is not shown. Neolithic remains have
not yet been discovered in these islands, and the earliest known pottery can
hardly be equated with the Cretan series before E.M. II. This pottery is
essentially the same as the contemporary Helladic ware (p. xxii), and it likewise
occurs very sparsely in domestic deposits/ But early Cycladic tombs are
numerous, and the pottery which they contain is largely unbroken. This
collection includes an important group excavated by Theodore Bent in 1886
from cist-inhumations in Antiparos (A 301, etc.). He explored two cemeteries
there, one of which he thought was earlier than the other because of its poorer
interments,4 but he did not specify the finds which came from each cemetery,
and the only pottery of later appearance is the group A 333-6. The finest
piece of all the Antiparos pottery (A 301) came from the poorer cemetery.5
In the same cemetery was found the 'fiddle-idol' which has a counterpart
from Yortan (p. xiii), and other marble idols from both cemeteries belong to all
the types which occur in Crete in a general Early Minoan context (p. xiv, note 1).
This kind of pottery, which must be assigned to E.C. II, was usually
burnished black or red in Melos, as on the Mainland, but most of the examples
from Antiparos are not burnished (A 307). The earliest Cycladic decoration
consists of close hatched patterns of chevrons and triangles, and is lightly
scored or impressed rather than incised. The commonest shape is a heavy
jar with pierced string-bosses; it has a conical neck and sometimes a trumpet
foot (A 308). This was often made in marble, but it seems to be a pure pottery
1 Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos (Soc. Prom. Hellenic Studies, Suppl. Paper no. 4, 1904) ; and
B.S.A., xvii (1910-11), p. 1.
2 For the sites see Fimmen's list in Knt.-myk. ICullur, pp. 13-15.
3 D. Mackenzie in Phylakopi, p. 240.
< J.H.S., v., pp. &ff.
'- Loc. cit., fig. 10.
Macedonia (A 81-3, A 115 : p. xxii). Like that group the West Greek bucchero
is more likely to have been derived through a Balkan channel than from Boeotia.
It seems as if there was less intercourse between the east and west of Greece
than between the Helladic and Cycladic areas. These two were indeed so
closely bound together that they cannot logically be separated ; their names must
be taken to signify two subdivisions of a Central Aegean culture rather than
independent communities like those of Thessaly and Crete.
V.—THE CYCLADES.
The sequence of Cycladic pottery has been established by the excavation
of a large town-site at Phylakopi in Melos.1 Copious material, particularly of
the earlier periods, has been obtained from lesser settlements and cemeteries
in many other islands of the group,2 but the series is only continuous at
Phylakopi. 'Even there its beginning is not shown. Neolithic remains have
not yet been discovered in these islands, and the earliest known pottery can
hardly be equated with the Cretan series before E.M. II. This pottery is
essentially the same as the contemporary Helladic ware (p. xxii), and it likewise
occurs very sparsely in domestic deposits/ But early Cycladic tombs are
numerous, and the pottery which they contain is largely unbroken. This
collection includes an important group excavated by Theodore Bent in 1886
from cist-inhumations in Antiparos (A 301, etc.). He explored two cemeteries
there, one of which he thought was earlier than the other because of its poorer
interments,4 but he did not specify the finds which came from each cemetery,
and the only pottery of later appearance is the group A 333-6. The finest
piece of all the Antiparos pottery (A 301) came from the poorer cemetery.5
In the same cemetery was found the 'fiddle-idol' which has a counterpart
from Yortan (p. xiii), and other marble idols from both cemeteries belong to all
the types which occur in Crete in a general Early Minoan context (p. xiv, note 1).
This kind of pottery, which must be assigned to E.C. II, was usually
burnished black or red in Melos, as on the Mainland, but most of the examples
from Antiparos are not burnished (A 307). The earliest Cycladic decoration
consists of close hatched patterns of chevrons and triangles, and is lightly
scored or impressed rather than incised. The commonest shape is a heavy
jar with pierced string-bosses; it has a conical neck and sometimes a trumpet
foot (A 308). This was often made in marble, but it seems to be a pure pottery
1 Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos (Soc. Prom. Hellenic Studies, Suppl. Paper no. 4, 1904) ; and
B.S.A., xvii (1910-11), p. 1.
2 For the sites see Fimmen's list in Knt.-myk. ICullur, pp. 13-15.
3 D. Mackenzie in Phylakopi, p. 240.
< J.H.S., v., pp. &ff.
'- Loc. cit., fig. 10.