DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12762#0015
PREFACE
ix
from Platanos. We may perhaps infer that the rustic communities who reared
these ossuary vaults were illiterate in comparison with the dwellers in the more
important urban and palatial centres.
Considering the periodical clearances, and the perpetual robbery that no
doubt went on besides at every fresh interment in these vaults, the comparative
rarity of metal objects easily explains itself. Among the small gold orna-
ments found, the most important is one in the form of a toad from Koumasa,
the warts of which probably supply the earliest instance of granulated decora-
tion. The subject itself recalls the frog amulets of Egypt. The ossuary of
Kalathiana, which seems to have been robbed of considerable treasure in
recent times, produced a cylindrical gold bead with two interlocked rows of
applique spirals (391) and a curious openwork band (394), while a finely wrought
chain (484), with what seems to have been intended for a pendant flower, like
a similar jewel from an E.M. II tomb at Mochlos, was found in the early stratum
of Tholos A at Platanos. Silver objects were rare—as is usual in the Early
Minoan deposits of Crete—in contrast with the Cyclades; the most important
were the three dagger blades from Koumasa, two of which reproduce a copper
type from the same site, of elongated, triangular, somewhat transitional form,1
but with a well-marked median rib.
Of copper and, in the latest phase, bronze dagger blades, these primi tholoi
produced a long series of great interest from the point of view of evolution.
The earliest, belonging principally to E.M. I and II, were of the sub-triangular
shape, but two small specimens with tangs—Nos. 1489, 1490—were found at
Salame in company with E.M. I pottery. The possibility even suggests itself
that this type may be an offshoot of a somewhat similar form that occurs in
pre-dynastic Egyptian graves. The short triangular form went on for certain
purposes side by side with the elongated types in the succeeding E.M. Ill Period,
though in a continually decreasing ratio, till in the First Middle Minoan
Period it finally disappears. By that date we begin to find elongated blades
provided with a short tang which in turn supply the prototypes of the fully
developed thrusting swords that make their appearance towards the close of
the Middle Minoan age.
From the analyses to which Dr. Xanthoudides refers, tin seems to have
been sparingly used as an alloy of the copper material about the middle of
E.M. III. True bronze, indeed, with the full proportion of ten or more parts
of tin, does not seem to have been known in Crete till the First Middle Minoan
Period. A dagger, probably belonging to an advanced stage of this Period,
1 See Palace, I, p. 100, where the type re- age of Central Italy. Conical tin ' buttons ' of
presented by this pair of silver dagger blades Celtic and Iberian type were found in the same
(referred there to the close of E.M. II) is com- deposit. (Cf. Peet, The Sto?ie and Bronze Ages in
pared with a specimen described by Colini, Boll. Italy, p. 196.) The silver daggers occurred in
di Paleontologia, XXV (1899), Plate IV, 3, pp. 301, a rectangular bone enclosure (F) just outside
302, found in an ossuary grotto at Monte Bradoni, the large tholos at Koumasa, not in the tholos
near Volterra, and belonging to the chalcolithic itself, as stated in Palace, loc. cit.
ix
from Platanos. We may perhaps infer that the rustic communities who reared
these ossuary vaults were illiterate in comparison with the dwellers in the more
important urban and palatial centres.
Considering the periodical clearances, and the perpetual robbery that no
doubt went on besides at every fresh interment in these vaults, the comparative
rarity of metal objects easily explains itself. Among the small gold orna-
ments found, the most important is one in the form of a toad from Koumasa,
the warts of which probably supply the earliest instance of granulated decora-
tion. The subject itself recalls the frog amulets of Egypt. The ossuary of
Kalathiana, which seems to have been robbed of considerable treasure in
recent times, produced a cylindrical gold bead with two interlocked rows of
applique spirals (391) and a curious openwork band (394), while a finely wrought
chain (484), with what seems to have been intended for a pendant flower, like
a similar jewel from an E.M. II tomb at Mochlos, was found in the early stratum
of Tholos A at Platanos. Silver objects were rare—as is usual in the Early
Minoan deposits of Crete—in contrast with the Cyclades; the most important
were the three dagger blades from Koumasa, two of which reproduce a copper
type from the same site, of elongated, triangular, somewhat transitional form,1
but with a well-marked median rib.
Of copper and, in the latest phase, bronze dagger blades, these primi tholoi
produced a long series of great interest from the point of view of evolution.
The earliest, belonging principally to E.M. I and II, were of the sub-triangular
shape, but two small specimens with tangs—Nos. 1489, 1490—were found at
Salame in company with E.M. I pottery. The possibility even suggests itself
that this type may be an offshoot of a somewhat similar form that occurs in
pre-dynastic Egyptian graves. The short triangular form went on for certain
purposes side by side with the elongated types in the succeeding E.M. Ill Period,
though in a continually decreasing ratio, till in the First Middle Minoan
Period it finally disappears. By that date we begin to find elongated blades
provided with a short tang which in turn supply the prototypes of the fully
developed thrusting swords that make their appearance towards the close of
the Middle Minoan age.
From the analyses to which Dr. Xanthoudides refers, tin seems to have
been sparingly used as an alloy of the copper material about the middle of
E.M. III. True bronze, indeed, with the full proportion of ten or more parts
of tin, does not seem to have been known in Crete till the First Middle Minoan
Period. A dagger, probably belonging to an advanced stage of this Period,
1 See Palace, I, p. 100, where the type re- age of Central Italy. Conical tin ' buttons ' of
presented by this pair of silver dagger blades Celtic and Iberian type were found in the same
(referred there to the close of E.M. II) is com- deposit. (Cf. Peet, The Sto?ie and Bronze Ages in
pared with a specimen described by Colini, Boll. Italy, p. 196.) The silver daggers occurred in
di Paleontologia, XXV (1899), Plate IV, 3, pp. 301, a rectangular bone enclosure (F) just outside
302, found in an ossuary grotto at Monte Bradoni, the large tholos at Koumasa, not in the tholos
near Volterra, and belonging to the chalcolithic itself, as stated in Palace, loc. cit.