DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0245
PARALLEL FIND AT HARAGEH
219
above. The cup (PI. IX, a), of the finest 'egg-shell' fabric,1 is exquisitely
decorated with white feather-like objects displayed on the black ground
between waving, crimson bands (Fig. 126). At every turn we are struck
with the beauty and variety of the designs, representing the fine flower of
the Minoan polychrome style.
This remarkable hoard of painted vessels—here taken to include those
from house foundations immediately West—may be conveniently referred
to as the 'South-East polychrome deposit' and, whether we regard the
excellence of the decorative style or the definite chronological indication
that it supplies, it must claim a high place among the ceramic finds of
Chrono-
logical
place of
S.E.
deposit
estab-
lished by
Harageh.
Fig. 124. Upper Part of Polychrome Bowl, Knossos.
Knossos. Stratigraphically, as we have seen, it is on the same horizon
as the Royal Pottery Stores, containing the finest known specimens of
the Minoan 'egg-shell' ware that represents the acme of the M. M. II a
polychrome style. We may infer from this, moreover, that it marks some
widespread destruction in the Palace and its borders at that epoch, which,
thanks to the Harageh evidence, we may now place approximately at
1890 b. c. This destruction, whatever may have been its cause, long antici-
pated the final catastrophe of the M. M. II cultural phase, of which we have
a good landmark in the contents of the Loom-Weight Area presenting, from
the potter's point of view, a distinct inferiority in fabric. Already, indeed, by
the date of the ' Abydos Vase ', which may take us to the latter part of the
nineteenth century b. c, we trace a certain falling off in the decorative style.
The counterpart to the appearance in Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian
settlements of polychrome pottery, some of which we may legitimately con-
clude to have been of M. M. II Knossian fabric, is to be seen in the
discovery of the diorite monument of User, of Middle Empire date, in an
M. M. II deposit of the Palace of Knossos. This discovery, described in
1 Compare an egg-shell cup with similar waved decoration from Palaikastro (R. M. Dawkins,
Suppl. on Palaikastro, Pt. I, p. 16, Fig. 10).
219
above. The cup (PI. IX, a), of the finest 'egg-shell' fabric,1 is exquisitely
decorated with white feather-like objects displayed on the black ground
between waving, crimson bands (Fig. 126). At every turn we are struck
with the beauty and variety of the designs, representing the fine flower of
the Minoan polychrome style.
This remarkable hoard of painted vessels—here taken to include those
from house foundations immediately West—may be conveniently referred
to as the 'South-East polychrome deposit' and, whether we regard the
excellence of the decorative style or the definite chronological indication
that it supplies, it must claim a high place among the ceramic finds of
Chrono-
logical
place of
S.E.
deposit
estab-
lished by
Harageh.
Fig. 124. Upper Part of Polychrome Bowl, Knossos.
Knossos. Stratigraphically, as we have seen, it is on the same horizon
as the Royal Pottery Stores, containing the finest known specimens of
the Minoan 'egg-shell' ware that represents the acme of the M. M. II a
polychrome style. We may infer from this, moreover, that it marks some
widespread destruction in the Palace and its borders at that epoch, which,
thanks to the Harageh evidence, we may now place approximately at
1890 b. c. This destruction, whatever may have been its cause, long antici-
pated the final catastrophe of the M. M. II cultural phase, of which we have
a good landmark in the contents of the Loom-Weight Area presenting, from
the potter's point of view, a distinct inferiority in fabric. Already, indeed, by
the date of the ' Abydos Vase ', which may take us to the latter part of the
nineteenth century b. c, we trace a certain falling off in the decorative style.
The counterpart to the appearance in Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian
settlements of polychrome pottery, some of which we may legitimately con-
clude to have been of M. M. II Knossian fabric, is to be seen in the
discovery of the diorite monument of User, of Middle Empire date, in an
M. M. II deposit of the Palace of Knossos. This discovery, described in
1 Compare an egg-shell cup with similar waved decoration from Palaikastro (R. M. Dawkins,
Suppl. on Palaikastro, Pt. I, p. 16, Fig. 10).