DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7476#0057
NON-CRETAN INGREDIENTS IN SHAFT GRAVES
indeed can more clearly illustrate, by contrast, the Cretan source of the true
Mycenaean type. The native form was imperfect and abortive.
One remarkable object, indeed, from the Sixth Shaft Grave marks
an intrusion from a very different direction. This is the bronze halberd
blade with gold-capped rivets reproduced in Fig. 32, and which, as I have
shown elsewhere,1 belongs to a family of such weapons of widespread
Western range, the basic type of which is an Irish halberd of already
advanced form, showing the typical undulation of its lower edge. The con-
nexion has to be traced through a wide Old Iberic tract between the
Channel and the Alps, but a nearer link, pointing to arrival in Greece by the
Adriatic route, is supplied by similar finds in the Po Valley. As in the case
of the amber beads, so richly forthcoming in some of the Graves, we may
trace here the operation of trade connexions along the East Adriatic Coast.
To what Extent were there non-Cretan Ingredients in the Shaft Graves?
For the purposes of the present study the intimate connexion between
the culture revealed by the Shaft Graves and that of Minoan Crete is of
paramount importance in supplying the chronological data of which we are
in need.
In the earliest stage represented by the contents of the Shaft Graves,
the finest products of Minoan Art are found side by side with comparatively
barbaric native pottery of the 'Middle Helladic' class. But, as is demon-
strated by a large number of later tombs, even this domestic element reaches
almost a vanishing point by the latter part of the First Late Minoan Period,
to be succeeded by what is best described as a colonial outgrowth from the
originally imported Minoan ceramic types, till—towards the close of the
Mycenaean Age—ceramic fabrics of indigenous style again become prominent.
Apart from the obvious survival of Middle Helladic pottery, very easy
to explain in the case of conquerors more set on bringing armourers and
goldsmiths than potters in their train, the evidence of native Mainland
tradition is by no means so clear as it is generally assumed to be. Features
even such as wearing of a beard and moustache illustrated by two gold masks
are not altogether convincing- when it is remembered that some evidence at
least of such a custom is to be found in Minoan Crete, including a relief of
an archer on a fragment of a steatite rhyton from Knossos.
a wider Bronze Age area has yet to be made
out. A certain sympathy, indeed, may be
thought to exist between this and a Caucasian
form (Virchow und Baiern, Graberfunde, arc.
in Kaukasien, 1885, PI. VII, 5), but inter-
mediate links on that side are not as yet
forthcoming.
1 Palace of Minos, ii, Pt. I, p. 170 seqq.
indeed can more clearly illustrate, by contrast, the Cretan source of the true
Mycenaean type. The native form was imperfect and abortive.
One remarkable object, indeed, from the Sixth Shaft Grave marks
an intrusion from a very different direction. This is the bronze halberd
blade with gold-capped rivets reproduced in Fig. 32, and which, as I have
shown elsewhere,1 belongs to a family of such weapons of widespread
Western range, the basic type of which is an Irish halberd of already
advanced form, showing the typical undulation of its lower edge. The con-
nexion has to be traced through a wide Old Iberic tract between the
Channel and the Alps, but a nearer link, pointing to arrival in Greece by the
Adriatic route, is supplied by similar finds in the Po Valley. As in the case
of the amber beads, so richly forthcoming in some of the Graves, we may
trace here the operation of trade connexions along the East Adriatic Coast.
To what Extent were there non-Cretan Ingredients in the Shaft Graves?
For the purposes of the present study the intimate connexion between
the culture revealed by the Shaft Graves and that of Minoan Crete is of
paramount importance in supplying the chronological data of which we are
in need.
In the earliest stage represented by the contents of the Shaft Graves,
the finest products of Minoan Art are found side by side with comparatively
barbaric native pottery of the 'Middle Helladic' class. But, as is demon-
strated by a large number of later tombs, even this domestic element reaches
almost a vanishing point by the latter part of the First Late Minoan Period,
to be succeeded by what is best described as a colonial outgrowth from the
originally imported Minoan ceramic types, till—towards the close of the
Mycenaean Age—ceramic fabrics of indigenous style again become prominent.
Apart from the obvious survival of Middle Helladic pottery, very easy
to explain in the case of conquerors more set on bringing armourers and
goldsmiths than potters in their train, the evidence of native Mainland
tradition is by no means so clear as it is generally assumed to be. Features
even such as wearing of a beard and moustache illustrated by two gold masks
are not altogether convincing- when it is remembered that some evidence at
least of such a custom is to be found in Minoan Crete, including a relief of
an archer on a fragment of a steatite rhyton from Knossos.
a wider Bronze Age area has yet to be made
out. A certain sympathy, indeed, may be
thought to exist between this and a Caucasian
form (Virchow und Baiern, Graberfunde, arc.
in Kaukasien, 1885, PI. VII, 5), but inter-
mediate links on that side are not as yet
forthcoming.
1 Palace of Minos, ii, Pt. I, p. 170 seqq.