DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7519#0120
THE EARLY MINOAN PERIOD
85
designs on black, the rest being left its natural reddish colour.1
The red is a deep Indian red, easily distinguishable from the
lighter orange which comes in in M.M.i. It is used sparingly
and the examples known are few. At Palaikastro a cup has
alternate festoons of white and red and a small red circle
surrounded by white dots; from Knossos comes a short-spouted
jar with red lines bordered with white radiating up from the
base.2
On the North coast, at Pyrgos, appeared a number of vessels
of dark brown burnished pottery, often incised (PI. XIII, 3,
a-c). Though the cave is unstratified, vessels of this fabric
are quite distinct from the earlier Sub-Neolithic, E.M.i, incised
wares. Whether they are of local fabric, as Evans thinks, or
actual imports from the Cyclades, it is hard to say. Personally,
I am inclined to think they are the latter, but at all events there
are among them the first examples of cylindrical pyxides which
begin to appear in Crete at this point.
The burial larnakes, of which examples are found at Pak-
hyammos and Pyrgos, are of plain clay, oval, with a pair of
vertical handles on each side near each end. The lids are
flat. In the case of a smaller burial chest from Pakhyammos,
which was decorated with a white trickle pattern on the buff
ground, the lid was slightly vaulted and had a handle on each
side at the top.3
The E.M.in stone vases at Mokhlos show a distinct decline. E.M.m
They are smaller and soft black steatite begins to be used to Stme v
the exclusion of the harder variegated stones.4 A fine exception,
however, is a spouted cylindrical vase of breccia from Tomb
XXIII.5 The shapes, as in the succeeding period, are mainly
confined to small bowls with lugs, and a higher shape of bowl
with a hook handle,6 the former shape occurring at Trapeza in
some numbers.
It is probable that the bulk of the stone vases from the
1B.S.A., Sup., Fig. 5a, and several examples in the plates, Trans.
Penn. Univ., I. In a very few cases at Palaikastro dark-on-light
patterns exist, but it is possible that they may belong to vases which
have also light-on-dark. B.S.A., Sup., PI. III.
= B.S.A., Sup., Fig. sd; P. of M.i, Fig. 78.
3 Pachyaminos, PI. XII.
1 Mochlos, 101. Cf. the disuse of variegated stones in Egypt after
the Ilnd Dynasty.
6 Ibid., 80, and PI. Ill, called in one place E.M.llbut presumably
finally dated by the tiny marble pyxis from the same tomb.
0 Ibid., Fig. 37, XVI, 5.
85
designs on black, the rest being left its natural reddish colour.1
The red is a deep Indian red, easily distinguishable from the
lighter orange which comes in in M.M.i. It is used sparingly
and the examples known are few. At Palaikastro a cup has
alternate festoons of white and red and a small red circle
surrounded by white dots; from Knossos comes a short-spouted
jar with red lines bordered with white radiating up from the
base.2
On the North coast, at Pyrgos, appeared a number of vessels
of dark brown burnished pottery, often incised (PI. XIII, 3,
a-c). Though the cave is unstratified, vessels of this fabric
are quite distinct from the earlier Sub-Neolithic, E.M.i, incised
wares. Whether they are of local fabric, as Evans thinks, or
actual imports from the Cyclades, it is hard to say. Personally,
I am inclined to think they are the latter, but at all events there
are among them the first examples of cylindrical pyxides which
begin to appear in Crete at this point.
The burial larnakes, of which examples are found at Pak-
hyammos and Pyrgos, are of plain clay, oval, with a pair of
vertical handles on each side near each end. The lids are
flat. In the case of a smaller burial chest from Pakhyammos,
which was decorated with a white trickle pattern on the buff
ground, the lid was slightly vaulted and had a handle on each
side at the top.3
The E.M.in stone vases at Mokhlos show a distinct decline. E.M.m
They are smaller and soft black steatite begins to be used to Stme v
the exclusion of the harder variegated stones.4 A fine exception,
however, is a spouted cylindrical vase of breccia from Tomb
XXIII.5 The shapes, as in the succeeding period, are mainly
confined to small bowls with lugs, and a higher shape of bowl
with a hook handle,6 the former shape occurring at Trapeza in
some numbers.
It is probable that the bulk of the stone vases from the
1B.S.A., Sup., Fig. 5a, and several examples in the plates, Trans.
Penn. Univ., I. In a very few cases at Palaikastro dark-on-light
patterns exist, but it is possible that they may belong to vases which
have also light-on-dark. B.S.A., Sup., PI. III.
= B.S.A., Sup., Fig. sd; P. of M.i, Fig. 78.
3 Pachyaminos, PI. XII.
1 Mochlos, 101. Cf. the disuse of variegated stones in Egypt after
the Ilnd Dynasty.
6 Ibid., 80, and PI. Ill, called in one place E.M.llbut presumably
finally dated by the tiny marble pyxis from the same tomb.
0 Ibid., Fig. 37, XVI, 5.