DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2533#0156
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THE AKGIVE STYLE
CHAPTER IV.
THE ARGIVE STYLE.
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The Argive (so-called Proto-Corinthian) style is not only the most characteristic vase
fabric at the Heraeura, but the one best represented by entire vases as well as frag-
ments, and seems to have been tbe most popular style in the Argolid from this end of
the Mycenaean epoch down to the beginning of the Corinthian style, a period of perhaps
from tbree to four centuries.
Tbe term " Proto-Corinthian," ' as is well known, was invented by Purtwiingler and
applied by him to certain vases, of which the small lekytboi with human and animal
figures as the chief scheme of decoration are the best examples. Purtwangier never
intended this name as an exact designation, but used it to show that this class bore a
close relation to the Corinthian style which it preceded.
Since the invention of this term twenty years have elapsed, and in that time the num-
ber of these vases has increased. Originally not more than half a dozen examples from
Thebes, Tanagra, or Corinth were known, but we now have numerous examples from
Attica, Aegina, Eleusis, Tiryns, Argos, Syracuse, Megara Hyblaea, Southern and North-
ern Italy. To the class identified by Purtwangier has been added a series of vases the
decoration of which consists entirely of fine parallel lines encircling the body of the vase
and Geometric motives. At the same time the term " Proto-Corinthian," though univer-
sally adopted, has never been considered thoroughly satisfactory, and numerous attempts
have been made to discover the real provenience of the style; none of the sites proposed
as the original home of the style (Chalcis,2 Corinth, Sicily, etc.) has yet been univer-
sally accepted. It has been generally believed that the style was the outcome of the
Geometric ware 3 and originated about the middle of the eighth century.
It ajjpears to me that the Argolid is the original home of this style, and I venture to
adopt a new system of classification and chronology, which differs materially from that
heretofore offered.4 The conclusions about to be stated have been forced upon me after
a careful study of the Heraeum fragments, and while I am far from claiming them to be
the only possible ones, they form the basis for the whole of this chapter. Briefly, the
so-called Proto-Corinthian style is Argive in its origin, and a direct offshoot of the Myce-
naean style, being contemporaneous with the Geometric.
From the very beginning of the excavations, when it was seen how large a proportion
of the vase fragments was formed by this ware, in 1892 Professor Waldstein asserted
that it was really Argive. Since then Professors Furtwangler'"' and Loeschcke 6 have also
come to the same conclusion. The arguments in favor of its Argive origin are : —
(a) The quality of this ware found at the Heraeum.
(6) The steady development from the earlier periods, especially the Mycenaean.
(a) The style is found in greatest quantities outside of the Argolid, in the Necropole
del Pusco at Syracuse,7 and at Megara Hyblaea,8 and Orchomenos.'1 The amount fur-
1 Bronzefunde von Olympia, pp. 47, 51.
2 The Chaleidian origin was proposed by Helbig {Die
Italiker in der Po-Ebene, p. 84). Stuart Jones follows
the same view (/. H. S. XVI. [189C], p. 333).
3 B. C. H. XIX. (1895), p. 182.
4 A brief outline of the following has already been
given by me in the American Journal of Archaeology,
1900, p. 441 ff.
6 Berl. Phihl. Wochens. 1895, p. 202.
6 Athen. Mitt. XXII. (1897), p. 202.
i Cf. Not. d. Scavi, 1893 and 1895.
8 Mon. Ant. vol. I.
0 B. C. H. XIX. (1895), pp. 182-188.