Mycenaean pottery
As Mycenaean ceramics are clay pots or their fragments (shards) indicates that on the potter's wheel are made and are often painted in the style typical v for vase painting of mainland Greece from about the 1600th BC and approx. 1050 BC BC (see Mycenaean culture ) is. The elements used are mainly plant, animal and geometric motifs of the most varied characteristics and variations, and in the later phase also increasingly depictions of people. Undecorated Mycenaean utility ceramics can often be recognized by the vessel shapes that correspond to those of the painted ceramics.
Development of style
The oldest examples of Mycenaean pottery were found in Laconia and Argolida . This earliest phase begins with the period SH I (= early Mycenaean) and covers the period from approx. 1600/1550 to 1500 BC. The decorations and most of the vessel shapes are very much influenced by the Minoan pottery of the time on Crete. Compared to this, however, the color of the clay is clearly yellowish, as in the Middle Helladic Minyian ceramics . Thus, the pottery products made on the mainland can be clearly distinguished from Cretan imports. Compared to the previous so-called minyschen and Matt Painted pottery that persists in many parts of Greece, represents the Mycenaean pottery is a clear break. Also popular are, as in the simultaneous Minoan pottery, plant and marine animal motifs. Compared to later periods there are relatively few different vessel shapes. These are partly derived from the Minoan and partly from the Miny ceramics. The vessel shapes that can be derived from Miny's ceramics are now made on the potter's wheel.
In the period SH II (approx. 1500 - 1400 BC) the very strong Minoan influence on the decoration continued. Mycenaean ceramics are now spreading further north and inland. More vessel shapes are decorated in the Mycenaean style, starting with goblets, a mainland Greek vessel shape, which now also occurs with floral decorations of the Mycenaean / Minoan type (so-called " Ephyrian goblets "). At the same time, the Miny style is being suppressed more and more. From around the middle of the 15th century BC Chr. (SH II B), roughly at the same time as the subjugation of Crete, stylistically Mycenaean ceramics increasingly broke away from Minoan ware. The formerly relatively lifelike depictions of flowers, tendrils and marine animals, especially octopods, are now becoming more and more abstract. Mycenaean ceramics are now also found in the Cretan Knossos and spread to the Aegean islands.
In phase SH III A (approx. 1400 - 1300 BC), Mycenaean ceramics spread as a commodity over large parts of the Mediterranean region. At the same time, a very strong standardization of the style can be observed: regional differences disappear, the place of production of a vessel can therefore often be determined by sound analysis. The Kylix becomes more popular in the course of SH IIIA and becomes dominant in open vessel shapes. The uniform “palace style” also lasted for a long time during the following phase SH III B (approx. 1300 - 1190 BC). Only during the second half of the 13th century did local variations slowly develop.
After the destruction and upheaval shortly after 1200 BC BC (at the transition from SH III B to SH III C), which primarily affects the Greek mainland, and the associated collapse of the palace economy , the Mycenaean style split in the period SH III C (approx. 1190 - 1050 BC) . Chr.) Even more strongly in local variants. The early phase clearly shows a strong deterioration in quality, the painting is z. B. is often not as accurate as in earlier times. A certain re-bloom then sets in from around the middle of the 12th century. Figurative representations, which also appear in SH III A, increase significantly at times, e.g. B. chariot drivers, warriors (e.g. on the warrior vase from Mycenae) and even ships with rowers. Later in this period, another gradual decline set in. Although phase SH III C shaped many local styles, there are contiguous regions that used quite similar ceramics. Such a koine z. B. the Ionian Islands with the opposite landscapes of Elis , Akarnania and parts of Achaia . Another koine was identified by Penelope A. Mountjoy on the East Aegean islands from Rhodes to Lesbos , including some places on the mainland of Asia Minor.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The times in the article are based on the traditional "short" chronology, which does not take into account the new, early 14 C date of the eruption on Thera .
literature
- Raynold Higgins: Minoan and Mycenaean Art. Thames and Hudgon London 1977.
- Penelope A. Mountjoy: Regional Mycenaean Decorated Pottery. 2 volumes. Leidorf, Rahden 1999, ISBN 3-89646-011-0 .
- Frank Henry Stubbings : Mycenaean Pottery from the Levant. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1951. - Review of: Sara A. Immerwahr, American Journal of Archeology 56, 1952, 152-154, online .
- Frank Henry Stubbings: The Mycenaean pottery of Attica. In: The Annual of the British School at Athens 42, 1947, 1-75, online .
- Gert Jan van Wijngaarden : Use and Appreciation of Mycenaean Pottery in the Levant, Cyprus and Italy (approx. 1600-1200 BC) . Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2002, ISBN 9789053564820 .
