DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7476#0064
48 DISAPPEARANCE OF EXOTIC INGREDIENTS
clung to some native fashions of their own. These consist of spiral wires on
either side of gold tubes (Fig. 37, above), bracelets of spiraliforrn fabric and
three pairs of ear-rings which, however, must have been hooked on to the ears.
All of these recall types of gold ornaments found in the treasures of the
Second and Third Cities of Troy, but—as might have been expected from the
considerable chronological gap of at least seven centuries—in a developed
shape and illustrating a more advanced technique. Hubert Schmidt has
well shown that the typical form of the ear rings, together with the general
fashion of spiraliforrn jewellery, is common to a large Central and Eastern
European Province, including the Early Bronze Age ' Aunjetitz' Culture of
Bohemia 1 and would seem to have centred in that early Eldorado, Transyl-
vania. Later phases are seen in the Caucasus, but we are still brought
back to Troy for the earliest representative types. Ear-rings themselves, so
far as the evidence goes, only appear in Crete in the Late Minoan Age.
A trans-Aegean as well as a Cycladic element must thus be recognized
among- the relics from the Shaft Graves. The Pontic and Troadic influences
to which apparently in the earliest times the silver supply of the Aegean
area was principally due remained an abiding factor. There exists, indeed,
some incontestable evidence that a commercial intercourse between Minoan
Crete and the Southern coasts of the Euxine, including the neighbourhood
of Amisos, was actively carried on in the closing phase of L. M. I 2—an epoch
still covered by the latest interments in the Shaft Graves.
Supersession both of Exotic and of Hellado-Minyan Elements at
Mycenae by purely Minoan Culture.
There are reasons for supposing that most of the exotic objects above
referred to, and notably such objects as the cloak-pins and ear-rings, may be
reckoned among the earlier relics found in the Graves. Clearly, at the time
when the rulers of Mycenae first made good their position in the Argolid,
a strong current was flowing from the North-East. It is almost equally
clear, however, that in the succeeding Age and already by the first Late
Minoan Period—well illustrated by the contents of the Chamber Tombs of
Mycenae and its neighbourhood, and, indeed, of Mycenaean Greece in
general—the evidence of these North-Eastern influences disappear. The
characteristic ear-rings, the pendants and pins, the typical perched animals,
are no longer found.
At the same time the old indigenous Helladic and Minyan element
1 Zeiischrift fur Ethnologie, xxxvi (1901), 2 P. of M., \\, Pt. II, pp. 658, 659.
p. 609 seqq.
clung to some native fashions of their own. These consist of spiral wires on
either side of gold tubes (Fig. 37, above), bracelets of spiraliforrn fabric and
three pairs of ear-rings which, however, must have been hooked on to the ears.
All of these recall types of gold ornaments found in the treasures of the
Second and Third Cities of Troy, but—as might have been expected from the
considerable chronological gap of at least seven centuries—in a developed
shape and illustrating a more advanced technique. Hubert Schmidt has
well shown that the typical form of the ear rings, together with the general
fashion of spiraliforrn jewellery, is common to a large Central and Eastern
European Province, including the Early Bronze Age ' Aunjetitz' Culture of
Bohemia 1 and would seem to have centred in that early Eldorado, Transyl-
vania. Later phases are seen in the Caucasus, but we are still brought
back to Troy for the earliest representative types. Ear-rings themselves, so
far as the evidence goes, only appear in Crete in the Late Minoan Age.
A trans-Aegean as well as a Cycladic element must thus be recognized
among- the relics from the Shaft Graves. The Pontic and Troadic influences
to which apparently in the earliest times the silver supply of the Aegean
area was principally due remained an abiding factor. There exists, indeed,
some incontestable evidence that a commercial intercourse between Minoan
Crete and the Southern coasts of the Euxine, including the neighbourhood
of Amisos, was actively carried on in the closing phase of L. M. I 2—an epoch
still covered by the latest interments in the Shaft Graves.
Supersession both of Exotic and of Hellado-Minyan Elements at
Mycenae by purely Minoan Culture.
There are reasons for supposing that most of the exotic objects above
referred to, and notably such objects as the cloak-pins and ear-rings, may be
reckoned among the earlier relics found in the Graves. Clearly, at the time
when the rulers of Mycenae first made good their position in the Argolid,
a strong current was flowing from the North-East. It is almost equally
clear, however, that in the succeeding Age and already by the first Late
Minoan Period—well illustrated by the contents of the Chamber Tombs of
Mycenae and its neighbourhood, and, indeed, of Mycenaean Greece in
general—the evidence of these North-Eastern influences disappear. The
characteristic ear-rings, the pendants and pins, the typical perched animals,
are no longer found.
At the same time the old indigenous Helladic and Minyan element
1 Zeiischrift fur Ethnologie, xxxvi (1901), 2 P. of M., \\, Pt. II, pp. 658, 659.
p. 609 seqq.