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Early Aegean Hoards of Metalwork

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Keith Branigan
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Extract

Hoards of metalwork are a common feature of the Bronze Age cultures of Europe and some of them have received a detailed treatment in recent years. Such hoards are relatively rare in the Aegean Early Bronze Age however, and in publishing the Kythnos hoard Dr. Renfrew could only point to three other hoards of third millennium date from the Aegean. Two of these indeed are still unpublished, so that the publication of the complete hoard from Kythnos is an invaluable addition to our previous knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to four groups of metal objects which the writer believes to represent metal hoards of this period, and to discuss the composition and nature of these and the four hoards which Renfrew described.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 64 , November 1969 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1969

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References

Abbreviations used, other than those normally found in the Annual:

Branigan = Branigan, K., Copper and Bronzeworking in Early Bronze Age Crete (Lund, 1968)Google Scholar

Deshayes = Deshayes, J.Les Outils de Bronze de l'Indus au Danube (Paris, 1960).Google Scholar

Poliochni = Brea, L. B.Poliochni, Città Preistorica nell'Isola di Lemnos (Rome, 1964).Google Scholar

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Greek Authorities for permission to study the objects in Heraklion Museum, and to Dr. Alexiou for providing facilities for this work. Thanks are also due to Dr. H. Catling (Ashmolean Museum) for facilities to study the Cycladic and Minoan metalwork in Oxford, and to Dr. P. Warren for information concerning the copper chisel recently found by him at Fournou Korifi. I am indebted to the Managing Committee and staff of the British School at Athens for considerable assistance during my various visits to Athens and Crete.

1 e.g. Hodges, H. W., Ulster Journal of Archaeology xx, 3rd series, (1957) 51–63Google Scholar; Hundt, H.-J., Jahrbuch des Romisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz ii (1955) 95–132Google Scholar; Britton, D., PPS xxix (1963) 270–3Google Scholar, 286–91, 310–19.

2 Renfrew, C., AJA lxxi (1967) 9.Google Scholar

3 The hoards from Petralona (on display in Thessaloniki Museum) and Thebes (briefly described and with a photograph of the hoard in situ in ILN 5 Dec. 1964).

4 Well-dated examples of the flat axe have been found at Troy, Thermi, Poliochni, Eutresis, and Thebes, in addition to a larger number of stray finds from the Troad, Cyclades, and northern Greece.

5 Goldman, H., Excavations at Eutresis in Boeotia (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), 215.Google Scholar

6 Platon, N. and Stassinopoulou-Touloupa, E., ‘Ivories and Linear B from Thebes’, ILN 5 Dec. 1964, 89.Google Scholar

7 The four tools, and the spearhead from the same site, are figured in Evans, A. J., Palace of Minos i (London, 1921) fig. 141.Google Scholar

8 For description and other examples see Branigan 89.

9 For description and other examples see Branigan 90.

10 For description and other examples see Branigan 89.

11 Branigan 89 (cat. nos. DA. II, 2–3, AA. I, 2), 90 (cat. no. Ch. I, 3).

12 A very similar double-axe, without the stepped profile of the one from Selakanos, was found on Chios, cf. Ridgeway, W., The Early Age of Greece (Cambridge, 1901) 51, fig. 27.Google Scholar

13 For early Minoan parallels see Branigan 90.

14 Evans, A. J., Palace of Minos ii (London, 1928) 14, fig. 3ƒ.Google Scholar

15 Many, but not all, of the Late Bronze Age double-axes from Crete are notably slimmer with L./MW. ratios of the order 4·0–6·0.

16 Cf. Branigan 47.

17 Renfrew, loc. cit. 8, pl. 6, 32.

18 Ibid. 8.

19 All measurements of catalogued items are given in centimetres. Following the length and maximum width of the artifact, its Heraklion (HM) or Athens (ANM) museum number is given, and then its Deshayes catalogue number.

20 For comparable Minoan examples see Branigan 89, 90.

21 Unpublished, discovered in the excavations of 1968.

22 Branigan 90, cat. no. Ch. II, 1.

23 Hutchinson, R. W., PPS xvi (1950) 62, pl. iv, 7–8.Google Scholar

24 Mosso, A., The Dawn of Mediterranean Civilisation (London, 1910) fig. 168.Google Scholar

25 Renfrew, loc. cit., 19, nos. 41–2, pl. 9.

26 Branigan 89.

27 Lamb, W., Excavations at Thermi, in Lesbos (Cambridge, 1936) pl. xxv, 30.34a–b, 29.9Google Scholar; Poliochni pl. clxxii, a; Gold man, op. cit. fig. 287, 1; Schliemann, H., Troy and its Remains (London, 1875) 331Google Scholar, fig. 257.

28 Lamb, op. cit. pl. xxv, 30.15, 31.7, 31.22, 32.41; Poliochni pl. clxxii b; Goldman, op. cit. fig. 287, 3; Schliemann, , Ilios (London, 1880) nos. 816–17.Google Scholar

29 Poliochni pl. clxxiv a–c; Pernier, L., Il Palazzo Minoico di Festos i. 125.Google Scholar

30 Deshayes pl. viii, 11; pl. liv, 11.

31 Called battle-axes by the excavator, Schliemann, , Troy and its Remains 331.Google Scholar

32 Poliochni pl. clxxii b.

33 There is, in addition, a stray find from Saria published in JHS xvii (1897) 64, fig. 4 and a number of similar tools with perforations have been found in the Levant.

34 I know of no shaft-hole tools of the Aegean Early Bronze Age which have been found in tomb deposits. A small number of awls and chisels have been foundin tomb deposits in Crete however.

35 Branigan 10, 56.

36 Branigan, K., AJA lxxii (1968) 225–6.Google Scholar

37 Tsountas, K., Αἱ προϊστορικαὶ άκροπόλεις Διμηνίου καὶ Σέσκλου (Athens, 1908) figs. 264, 265, 292, 293. pl. 4Google Scholar; Goldman, op. cit. figs. 286–7.

38 Daux, , BCH lxxxiii (1959) 587 ff.Google Scholar, fig. 11; Rey, L., BCH xlii (1918) 244Google Scholar, fig. 43.

39 Blegen, C. W., Zygouries, A Prehistoric Settlement in the Valley of Cleonae (Cambridge, Mass., 1928) 183–4Google Scholar, pl. xx; Caskey, J., Hesperia xxiv (1955) pl. 23a, bGoogle Scholar, Hesperia xxvi (1957) pl. 42c; Frödin, O. and Persson, A., Asine, Results of the Swedish Excavations, 1922–1930 (Stockholm, 1938) fig. 182Google Scholar; Mylonas, G., Aghios Kosmas, an Early Bronze Age Settlement and Cemetery in Attica (Princeton, 1959) fig. 163Google Scholar; Theochares, D., PAE (1951–1955)Google Scholar, short summaries of the excavations.

40 Summarized in Renfrew, loc. cit. 4.

41 Schmidt, H., Schliemanns Sammlung Trojanischer Altertumer (Berlin, 1902) nos. 5826, 5831, 5849; Poliochni pl. clxxiiiGoogle Scholar; Caskey, , Hesperia xxvi, pl. 42c.Google Scholar

42 Dunand, M., Fouilles de Byblos ii (Paris, 1954) 272, 393Google Scholar, Fouilles de Byblos i (Paris, 1939) 79 ff.

43 Perrot, J., Israel Exploration Journal v (1955) 79, pl. 15A.Google Scholar

44 Branigan, K., AJA lxxii (1968) 227.Google Scholar

45 They could have been collections of wealth, but the absence of other types of metal objects from these hoards argues against this.

46 Branigan 91.

47 e.g. Kythnos (BM 66. 2–7. 2, 3, 9, 10), Selakanos (HM 303, 337, and the axe with the stepped profile), Naxos (ANM 6198, 2), Eutresis (fig. 287, 1).

48 Branigan 89; Deshayes no. 2897 (Naxos, ANM 6196).

49 The author does not believe that the building at Chamaizi was adomestic residence, but follows Platon's interpretation of the building as a peak sanctuary.

50 Goldman, op. cit. 19.

51 Platon and Stassinopoulou-Touloupa, op. cit. fig. 5.

52 Cf. Byblos (supra n. 42), Sardinia (Guido, M.Sardinia (London, 1963) 164–7Google Scholar) Sicily (Brea, L. B., Sicily (London, 1957) 193)Google Scholar, Ireland (Eogan, G., PPS xxx (1964) 349)Google Scholar, Scotland (Britton, D., PPS xxix (1963) 311, 313).Google Scholar