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‘Barbarian’ Pottery from the Mycenaean Settlement at the Menelaion, Sparta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

H. W. Catling  and
E. A. Catling
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Extract

In 1973, after an interval of many years, the British School at Athens returned to Sparta to resume work in an area with which it had been associated since early in the present century. The site chosen was the Mycenaean settlement at the Menelaion, briefly investigated by R. M. Dawkins in 1910. Full seasons of excavation were completed in each of the years 1973–6, and 1980. A cleaning season was undertaken in 1977, while supplementary excavations were made in the autumns of 1977 and 1978. Several brief preliminary accounts of this work have appeared, while one or two objects of particular intrinsic interest have been published in detail.

For the time being, at least, the excavation of the prehistoric site at the Menelaion is at an end. Though work on the preparation of the final report is well advanced, it will be some time before this can be published, and the many classes of pottery and other objects can be made generally available.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 76 , November 1981 , pp. 71 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1981

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References

Acknowledgements. The excavations of the British School at Athens at the Menelaion, Sparta 1973–80 have been carried out with a permit granted by the Greek Ministry of Culture, to whom warm thanks are due. Mr. G. Stainhauer and Dr. Th. Spyropoulos, successive Ephors of Antiquities for Lakonia-Arkadia have been of the greatest assistance. In addition to funds provided by the British School, financial assistance has been received from the British Academy, the Munro Fund of the University of Edinburgh (in 1973), the Craven Fund of the University of Oxford, the Faculty of Classics in the University of Cambridge, and the Society of Dilettanti (1978).

Supervision of those parts of the excavation from which came the material described here was undertaken by C. J. M. Catling, R. W. V. Catling, A. Dunn, D. Smyth, and A. M. Snodgrass. The sites were surveyed and drawn by D. Smyth, Honorary Surveyor of the British School, who is also responsible for the site plan, Fig. 1.

We have profited from discussion of this material with Professor Klaus Kilian, Director of the Tiryns excavations, and are grateful to him for allowing us to consult and refer to his paper for AA 1980 in advance of publication.

The text and photographs are the work of H. W. Catling; the drawings were made by E. A. Catling.

Abbreviations. The following are employed in addition to those in standard use:

Fremde Zuwanderer Deger-Jalkotzy, S., Fremde Zuwanderer im spätmykenischen Griechenland (Vienna, 1977)Google Scholar

NWG Kilian, K., ‘Nordwestgriechische Keramik aus der Argolis und ihre Entsprechungen in der Subapenninfacies’, in Atti della XX riunione scientifica dell'Istituto italiano di preistoria e protostoria in Basilicata, 1976 (Florence, 1978) 311–320Google Scholar

1 BSA 16 (1909–1910) 4–11.

2 In AR 1973–74, 14–15; AR 1974–75 12–15; AR 1975–76, 13–15; AR 1976–77, 24–42; AR 1977–78, 31; AR 1978–79, 19–20; BCH 98 (1974) 613–14; BCH 99 (1975) 621–4; BCH 100 (1976), 614; BCH 101 (1977) 557–60; BCH 102 (1978) 673–5; BCH 103 (1979) 563; Lakonikai Spoudai 2 (1975) 258–69; Lak. Sp 3 (1977) 408–16; A. Delt. 29 Chr for 1973–4 (1979) 302–12; Neue Forschungen in griechischen Heiligtümern (Tübingen, 1976) 77–90. See also Schachermeyr, F., Die ägäische Frühzeit 2. Die mykenische Zeit und die Gesittung von Thera (Vienna, 1976) 136–7.Google Scholar

3 Catling, H. W. and Cavanagh, A., ‘Two inscribed bronzes from the Menelaion, Sparta’ in Kadmos xv (1976) 145–57Google Scholar; Catling, H. W., ‘Mycenaean stag from Sparta’ in Stele: Tomos eis mnemen Nikolaou Kontoleontos (Athens, 1979) 440–7.Google Scholar

4 The first extended published treatment was by Rutter, J., ‘Ceramic evidence for northern intruders in southern Greece at the beginning of the Late Helladic IIIC period’, AJA 79 (1975) 17–32Google Scholar, based on a study of ‘Barbarian’ pottery from Blegen, C. W.'s excavation at Korakou. The same author covered some of the same ground in his ‘Late Helladic IIIC pottery and some Historical Conclusions’ in Symposium on the Dark Ages in Greece (New York, Hunter College, 1977) 1–20.Google Scholar The significance of the material, however, had been appreciated ten years previously by French, E. B., in the light of finds at Mycenae, and referred to in her brief but very important paper ‘The first phase of LH IIIC’ in AA 1969, 133–6.Google Scholar This was made clear in a note ‘The Handmade Burnished ware of the Late Helladic IIIC period: its modern historical context’ written jointly by French, E. B. and Rutter, J., AJA 81 (1977) 111–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rutter's original interpretation, meanwhile, had been challenged by Walberg, G., ‘Northern Intruders in Myc IIIC?’, AJA 80 (1976) 186–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rutter published a retort ‘“Non-Mycenaean” pottery: a reply to Gisela Walberg’, ibid. 187–8. Other important contributions, whether presenting new material or discussing its wider implications include Fremde Zuwanderer (publishing material from the Austrian excavations at Aigeira—reviewed by Sherratt, S., JHS xcix (1979) 200—CrossRefGoogle Scholar and NWG (which illustrates examples from the Tiryns Unterburg excavations of 1971, now published in Tiryns ix (Mainz, 1980)). K. Kilian has published important new material from Tiryns found in his excavations in the Unterburg from 1976 onwards in AA 1980, figs. 19–21, 40 (we are very grateful to Professor Kilian for allowing us to refer to his text in advance of publication). Notice also Wardle, K. A. ‘Cultural groups of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age in North-West Greece’ in Godišnjak XV (Sarajevo, 1977) 153–99Google Scholar, Sandars, N. K., The Sea Peoples (London, 1978) 191–5Google Scholar, and Schachermeyr, F., Die ägäische Frühzeit 4. Griechenland im Zeitalter der Wanderungen (Vienna, 1980).Google Scholar Several contributions written before Rutter's account are of relevance, including Bouzek, J., Homerische Griechenland im Lichte der archäologischen Quellen (Prague, 1971) 21 ffGoogle Scholar, especially 25–6; Hood, M. S. F. ‘Buckelkeramik at Mycenae?’ in Europa: Festschrift Ernst Grumach (Berlin, 1967) 120–31Google Scholar; ‘Mycenaean settlement in Cyprus and the coming of the Greeks’ in The Mycenaeans in the East Mediterranean (Nicosia, 1973).

5 See topographic plan A. Delt. 29 Chr 303, fig. 1.

6 The geology of the area is described Bull. Geol. Soc. of Greece xii. 2 (1976) 3–28. (We owe this reference to Ian Whitbread). See also Bintliff, J., Natural Environment and Prehistoric Settlement in Prehistoric Greece, BAR Suppl. Series 28 (Oxford, 1977) 371–424, esp. 372–6.Google Scholar

7 e.g. AJA 79, 29–30.

8 NWG, figs, 1 and 3.

9 Popham, M. R. and Sackett, L. H., Excavations at Lefkandi, Euboea 1964–1966 18Google Scholar, fig. 34.

10 Podzuweit, Ch. in AA 1979, 424 and fig. 41:8 and 12.Google Scholar

11 JHS 99 (1979) 200.

12 ‘In 1964…the ware (sc. “Barbarian” ware) was found in considerable quantities at Mycenae in the LH IIIC wash levels retained by the Citadel Wall.’—AJA 81 (1977) 111.

13 An excellent lead has been given by K. Kilian, most recently in AA 1980.

14 Rutter's rebuttal of Walberg's weak arguments for local origin is entirely convincing—AJA 80, 187–8—and is an adequate counter for N. K. Sandars's similar view in The Sea Peoples 191–3.

15 Notice in particular the material decorated with piecrust cordons, Troy IV (1958) 178 and pl. 284, cf. French, and Rutter, AJA 81, 111–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The possibility of a connection between Trojan ‘Coarse Ware’ and ‘Barbarian’ ware has also been commented upon by Rutter, AJA 79, 23 ff.Google Scholar

16 For Korakou, , AJA 79, 19 fig. 2 and pl. 1, 2, pl. 3:16.Google Scholar For Tiryns, NWG, fig. 2a; Kilian, , AA 1980Google Scholar, fig. 19:5. For Troy, , Troy IV pl. 256, 8, 11, 16, and 17.Google Scholar