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An Iron Age Painted Amphora in the Cyprus Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

This unique amphora (Plates 7 and 8) was recently presented to the Cyprus Museum by Wing-Commander O'Brien Hubbard of Kyrenia, who saved it from the hands of illicit diggers and dealers. It is with special pleasure that I am now publishing it in the volume of the Annual of the British School at Athens which appears in honour of Professor J. L. Myres, the founder of Cypriot Archaeology, to whom the Cyprus Museum in particular owes a debt of deep gratitude.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1937

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References

page 57 note 1 SCE, vol. ii, pp. 142 ff.

page 57 note 2 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 302 ff.

page 57 note 3 RDAC, 1935, p. 13.

page 57 note 4 Handbook, pp. 63 ff.

page 58 note 1 Classification (16), pp. 27 ff.

page 58 note 2 This date has been kindly given me by Dr. Gjerstad.

page 58 note 3 SirWoolley, L. (Antiquaries Journal, XVII 1, p. 10)Google Scholar attributes the distinction of styles to an invasion of Cyprus at the beginning of the Iron Age by two kindred but distinct types whose original home was probably in Asia Minor. This is corroborated by two factors: (a) that the Iron Age pottery of Cyprus makes its appearance suddenly in the island, that it has little connection with any Bronze Age fabrics, and it is not descended from any of them through any transitional period; (b) the Tal Sheikh Yusuf (near Antioch) shews that the pottery of the mainland and of Cyprus are scarcely distinguishable, a fact which indicates the relation of the makers, but the makers on the Continent, as in Cyprus, are really not at home, and while level 8 is almost Cypriote in character, in levels 9 and 10, no ‘Cypriote’ pottery whatsoever was found. On this, however, see Daniel, J. F. (AJA, XLI, 83 and XLII, 275)Google Scholar, who thinks that the sub-Mycenaean style was thoroughly established in Cyprus years before the fall of Mycenae. It was a direct outgrowth of the pottery imported to Cyprus in the fourteenth and early thirteenth centuries, and evolved without interruption through the latest Mycenaean influence into the developed geometric style of the Early Iron Age.

page 60 note 1 Very thin or transparent costume is worn by female terracotta figurines of the Iron Age: see Myres, Handbook, no. 2140 and SCE, III, p. 596, pl. CCIII, 7–12.

page 60 note 2 Essays in Aegean Archaeology, PL. XIV.

page 60 note 3 Id., p. 82. Also Myres, Handbook, p. 156.

page 60 note 4 E.g. the bull-fighter of the Pitt-Rivers vase, id., Pl. XIV.

page 61 note 1 In fact the lyre-player of the Ayia-Triada sarcophagus, which will be brought into connection with the scenes on our amphora later on, is also male (Dussaud, p. 404).

page 61 note 2 Myres, Handbook, p. 340. The Cyprus Museum possesses several examples of figurines, the body of which is bell-shaped and the legs are suspended from the inside, through holes in the side of the bell.

page 61 note 3 Essays in Aegean Archaeology, p. 87.

page 62 note 1 Myres, Handbook, p. xxxi. S. Casson, Ancient Cyprus, pp. 69 ff., 135 ff.

page 62 note 2 Nilsson, p. 378.

page 62 note 3 Ibid., loc. cit.

page 62 note 4 Contenau, Glyptique, pp. 109 ff.

page 62 note 5 Ward, The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, 732.

page 62 note 6 Contenau, Glyptique, fig. 193.

page 63 note 1 Gontenau, Glyptique, p. 111. See also Spiegelberg, W. and Erman, A. in Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache, 34–36, 1896, 1898, pp. 126129, pl. XVIIGoogle Scholar, and Journal of Egypt. Arch. XII, 1926, pp. 22 ff. Xenophon (Anabasis IV, 5, 26) also speaks about this custom. Mr. Mallowan discovered at Ghagar Bazar copper drinking tubes which contained reed siphons, (ILN, March 1937, p. 518, Fig. 1).Google Scholar

page 63 note 2 See ‘Excavations at Erimi,’ RDAC, 1936, I, p. 142.

page 64 note 1 Gjerstad, Studies, pp. 303 ff.

page 64 note 2 Schaeffer, pp. 91 ff. Also: ‘Die Stellung Ras Shamra-Ugarits zur Kretischen und Mykenischen Kultur’, in Jahrbuch, 1937, pp. 139 ff.

page 64 note 3 Myres, Handbook, XXXIII.

page 64 note 4 The great importance of Cyprus in trade with the Syrian coast received a recent confirmation through Sir R. Woolley's excavations near Antioch in 1926. The level 8 at Tal Sheikh Yusuf shows that Cyprus had a virtual monopoly of the trade. Levels 8 and 7 are attributed to the eighth and early seventh centuries. See Antiquaries' Journal, Vol. XVII, p. 9.

page 64 note 5 Contenau, Manuel, II 1060.

page 64 note 6 Ibid., pp. 1056 ff.

page 64 note 7 SCE, II, Pl. CCXXXIII, 1011. About the connections between animals of real or fantastic nature and thrones of deities, see Contenau, , Manuel, II 1060Google Scholar, and Civilisation Phénicienne, p. 178.

page 65 note 1 Barnett, , Iraq, II 2, Pl. XXVI, 1 and p. 189.Google Scholar

page 65 note 2 Athen. Mitt., 1893, p. 113, Fig. 10.

page 65 note 3 Fürtwangler, Olympia, IV, Taf. LII.

page 65 note 4 Perrot et Chipiez, III, Fig. 523.

page 66 note 1 This may be compared to the girdle round the waists of the female figures on a gold ring from Mycenae. (Dussaud, fig. 300) (Fig. 4). One detail, however, is worth mentioning: I pointed out before that along the inside of the outline of the chest appears a band of dull purple colour which is extended to fill the hands. It is not at all impossible that the pot-painter meant to represent the tight-fitting jacket of the Minoan snake-goddess with large opening in front through which the breasts project. Minoan jacket and skirt are also worn by female figures represented on a fragmentary silver bowl from Cyprus: Myres, Handbook, p. 464, No. 4557.

page 66 note 2 Dussaud, pp. 402 ff.

page 66 note 3 The female figures on our amphora may also be compared to those on the gold ring from Mycenae (Evans, , Palace of Minos, II, 341, fig. 194, eGoogle Scholar) who wear flounced skirts and have the bust nude.

page 66 note 4 Chr. Bhirkenberg, Le temple de Paphos, pp. 23 ff.

page 66 note 5 The Ahiram sarcophagus (Contenau, Manuel, p. 1058) bears an element which may be brought into connection here; on the narrow sides two groups of four women, two raising hands above their heads, and two touching their breasts. The bust is nude and the dress consists of a skirt tightened round the waist and above the ankles. M. Dussaud thinks that these women do not dance, but that they have put on the rough funeral dress, and that some cover their heads with ashes or tear their hair, while others beat their breasts in sign of grief. Similar women, but differently inter preted, appear on the Amathus sarcophagus (Perrot et Chipiez, III, Fig. 417). The pro cession of women therefore in the Ahiram sarcophagus is quite different. There the women do not dance, their dress is different and the style in general bears no great resemblance to the procession on the amphora.

page 67 note 1 Dussaud, p. 410.

page 67 note 2 Nilsson, pp. 197 ff.

page 67 note 3 Dussaud, p. 406.

page 67 note 4 About the part played by wine in Minoan-Mycenaean cults see Nilsson, op. cit., p. 297

page 67 note 5 Poulsen, p. 36.

page 67 note 6 Kunze, pp. 212 ff.

page 68 note 1 Barnett, , Iraq II 2, Pl. XXVI.Google Scholar

page 68 note 2 Perrot et Chipiez, III, Fig. 482. Here I may mention another fragmentary patera (Myres, Handbook, No. 4557) on which a royal feast is depicted: it includes flute, harp, and tambourine players and adorants bringing food-offerings. All the adorants are women, and are dressed in Minoan jacket and skirt.

page 68 note 3 Poulsen, p. 34.

page 68 note 4 Perrot et Chipiez, III, fig. 523.

page 68 note 5 It is placed under white-painted V ware which flourished in the fifth century B.C. SCE II, Pl. CLXV 9.

page 68 note 6 Ohnefalsch Richter, Pl. CXXVIII 6. Kunze, note 50, dates it from the sub-Mycenaean times.

page 69 note 1 Kunze, pp. 212 ff.

page 69 note 2 Eph. Arch., 1892, Pl. 4.

page 69 note 3 Kunze, Pl. 48.

page 69 note 4 F. Halbherr, Museo-Italiano, Pl. IX.

page 69 note 5 M. Rutten, Deux vases Chypriotes du Musée du Louvre (Mélanges Syriens), pp. 435 ff. Pl. I.

page 70 note 1 See Barnett, R. D., Phoenician and Syrian Ivory Carving, in PEQ, January 1939, p. 11, PL. VI–VIIGoogle Scholar; also R. Dussaud, Les Découvertes de Ras Shamra (Ugarit) et l'ancien Testament, pp. 21 ff.

page 71 note 1 ILN, 23 December, 1933, p. 1034, fig. 3.

page 72 note 1 Similarly the Late Bronze Age bichrome pottery known as that of Milia and proved to be of Asiatic inspiration (Schaeffer, pp. 49 ff., Heurtley, , ‘A Palestinian Vase-painter,’ QDAP, VIII, 12, 21 ff.Google Scholar) occurs only in that site (i.e. Milia) and in other sites of the eastern regions of Cyprus.

page 72 note 2 Mélanges Syriens, I, pp. 435 ff.

page 72 note 3 My thanks are due to Mr. T. J. Dunbabin and Mlle. Simone Besques for helping me in my effort to obtain references to publications not in Cyprus.