DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4758#0034
INTRODUCTION. XXXUI
The same grey bucchero (A 423) and the lidded pots survived in plainer fabric
in E.M. II, which was otherwise a time of rapid progress. Its painted ware
bears rectilinear patterns in dull red varnish, ranging from simple lines to groups
of hatched or latticed figures, among which triangles opposed in double-axe or
butterfly fashion are very common. Great numbers of variegated stone vases
belong to this period; the best, from tombs in the island of Mochlos,1 are
exquisitely wrought in hard materials, and undoubtedly reflect Egyptian models.
Such vases, and other Egyptian forms in metal,2 began to modify ceramic shapes.
Angular bodies, long spouts in the shape of troughs and tubes, and sharply-profiled
bases are features of the time (A 424). A novel kind of Cretan decoration,
resembling an earlier Egyptian fabric and contemporary Anatolian wares (p. xiii),
was a mottled surface produced by firing a ferruginous clay slip or coat of varnish to
red and black shades in more or less regular schemes (Vasiliki Ware, A 424, etc.).3
The process lasted into the next period in an inferior style, and probably made
the transition by which the varnish-patterns of E.M. II gave way to the white
patterns on black varnish ground of E.M. III. The forms of E.M. Ill show
the beginning of classical restraint. Extravagant beaks were curtailed, long
tubes cut down to short bridged-spouts. The bridged-spout jar which began now
(A 432) was"a standard form for the display of the most sumptuous ornament
during the next five hundred years. Conical cups, simplest of all metal shapes,
also received their final form at this time and had a very much longer life (A 435).
The new white-painted patterns were largely curvilinear, but very simple ; the
most important of them, the spiral coil, appears to have been introduced by way
of the Cyclades.4 Rare natural subjects which occur are represented in
geometric style.5
The best examples of Early Minoan pottery, like the finest stone vases and
the richest jewellery that exists, have come from eastern Crete. It looks as if
that end of the island was in front at this time, and the communities of central
Crete, which had elaborated the neolithic culture, took the lead again at the
beginning of the Middle Minoan age, to which the palaces of Knossos and
Phaistos belonged. Herein lies the explanation of the persistence of the
E.M. Ill style on eastern sites, as happened probably with the parallel E.H. Ill
pottery on the Mainland (p. xxiv). A similar position is seen in the later overlap
of the Knossian Palace style by L.M. I at Pseira (p. xxxvii). ' The fabric of the*
latest E.M. Ill pottery is distinctly poor: its paint is dirty white and its varnish
shows the ill-coloured dullness to which it reverted at each succeeding period of
decadence. Foreign intrusions at this time may be seen in a grotesque element,
mainly expressed in zoomorphic vessels which point to Asia Minor (p. xii), and
1 Mochlos, pll. I-VII.
2 Palace of Minos, i. p. 80.
3 On the process see G. M. A. Richter, The Craft of Athenian Pottery, p. 45. It is, however, not
known whether the ordinary firing of this wash produced red or black colour.
4 See p. xxix, and Palace of Minos, i, p. 114.
5 Decorative Art of Crete, p. 9.
The same grey bucchero (A 423) and the lidded pots survived in plainer fabric
in E.M. II, which was otherwise a time of rapid progress. Its painted ware
bears rectilinear patterns in dull red varnish, ranging from simple lines to groups
of hatched or latticed figures, among which triangles opposed in double-axe or
butterfly fashion are very common. Great numbers of variegated stone vases
belong to this period; the best, from tombs in the island of Mochlos,1 are
exquisitely wrought in hard materials, and undoubtedly reflect Egyptian models.
Such vases, and other Egyptian forms in metal,2 began to modify ceramic shapes.
Angular bodies, long spouts in the shape of troughs and tubes, and sharply-profiled
bases are features of the time (A 424). A novel kind of Cretan decoration,
resembling an earlier Egyptian fabric and contemporary Anatolian wares (p. xiii),
was a mottled surface produced by firing a ferruginous clay slip or coat of varnish to
red and black shades in more or less regular schemes (Vasiliki Ware, A 424, etc.).3
The process lasted into the next period in an inferior style, and probably made
the transition by which the varnish-patterns of E.M. II gave way to the white
patterns on black varnish ground of E.M. III. The forms of E.M. Ill show
the beginning of classical restraint. Extravagant beaks were curtailed, long
tubes cut down to short bridged-spouts. The bridged-spout jar which began now
(A 432) was"a standard form for the display of the most sumptuous ornament
during the next five hundred years. Conical cups, simplest of all metal shapes,
also received their final form at this time and had a very much longer life (A 435).
The new white-painted patterns were largely curvilinear, but very simple ; the
most important of them, the spiral coil, appears to have been introduced by way
of the Cyclades.4 Rare natural subjects which occur are represented in
geometric style.5
The best examples of Early Minoan pottery, like the finest stone vases and
the richest jewellery that exists, have come from eastern Crete. It looks as if
that end of the island was in front at this time, and the communities of central
Crete, which had elaborated the neolithic culture, took the lead again at the
beginning of the Middle Minoan age, to which the palaces of Knossos and
Phaistos belonged. Herein lies the explanation of the persistence of the
E.M. Ill style on eastern sites, as happened probably with the parallel E.H. Ill
pottery on the Mainland (p. xxiv). A similar position is seen in the later overlap
of the Knossian Palace style by L.M. I at Pseira (p. xxxvii). ' The fabric of the*
latest E.M. Ill pottery is distinctly poor: its paint is dirty white and its varnish
shows the ill-coloured dullness to which it reverted at each succeeding period of
decadence. Foreign intrusions at this time may be seen in a grotesque element,
mainly expressed in zoomorphic vessels which point to Asia Minor (p. xii), and
1 Mochlos, pll. I-VII.
2 Palace of Minos, i. p. 80.
3 On the process see G. M. A. Richter, The Craft of Athenian Pottery, p. 45. It is, however, not
known whether the ordinary firing of this wash produced red or black colour.
4 See p. xxix, and Palace of Minos, i, p. 114.
5 Decorative Art of Crete, p. 9.