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The Façade of the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

S. E. Ellis ,
R. A. Higgins  and
R. Hope Simpson
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Summary

A53 (red) from Mycenae is identical with two of the Kyprianon samples (Ky 3 and 4) and differs from two others (Ky 6 and 7) only in the composition of one accessory mineral, viz. the feldspar. These are all typical rosso antico marbles.

A51 (grey-green) is not exactly matched either in texture or by accessory minerals with any single sample from Kyprianon, but all its accessories, and approximations to its structural characters, are found among different grey-green (Ky 2, Ky 7) and white (Ky 5W) samples. Further search would probably yield an exact match.

The evidence indicates that a source for the Mycenae marbles on the outcrop of the beds exposed in the Kyprianon quarries is highly probable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 63 , November 1968 , pp. 331 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1968

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References

1 The authorship of the different contributions is indicated by the authors' initials.

2 For the B.M. pieces, see BMC Sculpture i, pt. 1, 14–31.

3 Wace: Wace, A. J. B., Mycenae, an Archaeological History and Guide (Princeton, 1949), 29 ff.Google Scholar, fig. 51; slightly modified in Geras Antoniou Keramopoullou (Athens, 1953), 310 ff., and in Mylonas, G. E., Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age (Princeton, 1966), fig. 114.Google Scholar Williams: Wace, Alan and Wace, Helen, The Mycenaean Room in the National Museum, Athens (Meriden, 1964), pl. 1.Google Scholar

4 The drawing was done by Miss M. O. Miller for display in the British Museum in connection with the new reconstruction there of the Atreus façade.

5 e.g. Marinatos, in AE 1953–1954, Pt. A, pl. i Google Scholar; repeated in Marinatos, S. and Hirmer, M., Crete and Mycenae (London, 1960), 162, fig. 25.Google Scholar

6 Geras Antoniou Keramopoullou 313–14. Mylonas, op. cit.

7 Blümner, H., Technologie u. Terminologie der Gewerbe u. Künste bei Griechen u. Römern iii (Leipzig, 1884), 43, 47.Google Scholar

8 BSA xiii. 252–3 and lvi. 119–21, pl. 19 b and c.

9 I should like also to record here thai Mr. Peter Warren is currently working on problems concerning Minoan and other objects said to be of rosso antico: so that an authoritative revision of the list given in BSA lvi. 121 n. 45 is to be expected.

10 This map supersedes BSA lvi. 120, fig. 5. It was prepared with the assistance of Mr. William Loy, my colleague on the University of Minnesota Messenian Expedition of 1966. The details were corrected with the aid of air photos.

11 A steamer calls at this harbour and at Kyprianon every week.

12 Mr. Skalkoyiannis was at this time 73 years old. He is portrayed in Plate 66 c.

13 Cf. BSA xiii. 252–3. The road appears in Plate 66 a, towards the right of the picture.

14 We are most grateful to the Greek Archaeological Service, and especially to Miss A. Demakopoulou (Ephor of Laconia in 1966), for permission to take the samples, and for their assistance regarding this matter.

15 See n. 13 above.

16 I had previously assumed (BSA lvi. 120, fig. 5) that nos. 1 and 4 were the only modern quarries.

17 Cf. BSA lvi. 119–21.