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Protogeometric graves at Agios Ioannis near Knossos: (Knossos Survey 3)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

John Boardman
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Extract

The graves published here lie in a group by the junction of the main Knossos–Heraklion road and the secondary road to Ambelakia (Fig. 1). In May 1939 workmen widening the road to Ambelakia uncovered a tomb (Tomb I) which was cleared by the British School's Curator at Knossos, Mr. R. W. Hutchinson. In the summer of the same year the late Mr. T. J. Dunbabin, then Assistant Director of the British School, excavated five other tombs (Tombs II–VI) in the roadside. During the war a rectangular pit was dug near the road-corner by the occupying forces in Crete, presumably for a shelter which was never constructed. The pit revealed at least two other tombs whose contents were taken to Heraklion. The vases were subsequently removed from the island but for two which the ephor, Dr. N. Platon, rescued for the museum, and which he has kindly permitted me to publish here (Vases A and B). In September 1953 I excavated the dromoi of the two tombs which had been in the pit and cleared a side chamber in one of them (Tomb VIII), as well as a small tomb which had been partially disturbed by the pit (Tomb VII).

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 55 , November 1960 , pp. 128 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1960

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References

1 Preliminary reports appeared in JHS lix (1939) 204 f., lxiv (1944) 86. For the war-time activities see KCh i (1947) 633. The photographs in Plates 31 (I. 11), 32 (A, B) are by E. M. Androulakes.

2 Fortetsa: Early Greek Tombs near Knossos (1957); here referred to as Fortetsa.

3 Protogeometric Pottery (1952) 233 ff.; here abbreviated to PGP.

4 For a description of the standard Knossian Protogeometric fabric see PGP 238, Fortetsa 186.

5 I repeat for convenience Brock's abbreviations and dating as proposed in Fortetsa:

SM Sub-Minoan 1020–970 B.C.

EPG Early Protogeometric 970–920 B.C.

MPG Middle Protogeometric 920–870 B.C.

LPG Late Protogeometric 870–850 B.C.

PGB Protogeometric B 850–820 B.C.

6 An outlying PG–Geometric tomb at Ambelakia, 1 km. west of A. Ioannis, was dug by Alexiou in 1949–50 and published in KCh iv (1950) 294 ff.; and note the isolated Geometric tomb at Paraskioi, A., near Heraklion, AE 1945–1947, 47 ff.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Fortetsa 1, n. 2.

8 Apparently this was mainly to the north and west of the Palace.

9 Fortetsa 4 f.

10 Hutchinson, R. W. and Boardman, J. in BSA xlix (1954) 215 ff.Google Scholar The material from the third Geometric tomb at Khaniale Tekke has now been identified, and I hope to publish this shortly, with supplementary information which is now available about the other tombs. It might be argued that Gypsades Tomb VII (BSA 53–54 (1958–9) 205 ff.) was a Minoan one reused for Sub-Minoan burial(s). Another reused tomb was dug in 1959, at A. Ioannis, east of our cemetery.

11 Wiesner, J., Grab und Jenseits 93–95Google Scholar; Pendlebury, J. D. S., Archaeology of Crete 306–8, 319.Google Scholar Platon discusses them in AE 1945–7, 70–72 apropos of an example near Heraklion, with Knossian vases.

12 Cf. Fortetsa 3 f., 216 f. Another PG inhumation is reported, near Isopata, in Arch. Reports for 1958 21.

13 Cf. Hogarth, D. G., BSA vi (1899–1900) 83 f.Google Scholar

14 Pendlebury, op. cit. 319, mentions one in a Geometric grave excavated by him at A. Giorgiou Papoura. At Knossos the shape does not survive into PGB (PGP 238 f.).

15 It is still possible that in Crete the tradition for the shape had survived, although it was to adjust itself to Attic practice. The earlier Cretan form might be as Fortetsa pl. 7, 70 and 84, close in outline to the SM hydria from Liliana, MA xiv. 613 f., fig. 110 (Furumark, A., OpArch iii. 230Google Scholar; unless this vase is like Boll. d'Arte 1955, 155, fig. 28, with four handles).

16 Cf. PGP pl. 5.

17 Fortetsa 146, Type II A; but compare also the proportions of the vases cited in n. 15.

18 Fortetsa 143.

19 e.g. Säflund, G., La Terramare pls. 55, 12–13; 64.Google Scholar

20 e.g. PM iv. 1005 f., figs. 955–6; Hesperia xxiv (1955) 215, fig. 8, 31.

21 No. 288, pl. 143 and Pattern 17au. A stirrup vase from Kourtes, AJA v (1901) pl. 8, 2, has a similar device with a triangular handle in the same place, beneath the spout. Compare the fork and tripod, Fortetsa Patterns 17av–ax.

22 Ann. x–xii. 245, fig. 291 (Tomb R).

23 As often on relief pithoi. Unusual on decorated vases, but compare the handle and neck of the Rhodian oenochoe, Clara Rhodos iii. 104, fig. 98; the East Greek fragments from Troy, Schmidt, H., Trojanischer Altertümer 180Google Scholar, nos. 3651, 3653; a fragment from Kamiros in Oxford (1935. 854); and cf. now Acta Arch. xxviii (1957) (Exochi) 149.

24 Ann. x–xii. 613, fig. 646; N.S. iii–v. 57, fig. 47; C. Zervos, L'Art de la Crète fig. 747. And cf. Ausonia vi (1911) 110, fig. 1 (Phaistos).

25 PM i. 52 fig. 14. And compare the decoration of the Geometric figurine from Anavlochos, BCH lv (1931) 388, fig. 26. There is a similarly decorated clay bull from the Psychro Cave (Heraklion 3150). On Fortetsa no. 360, a PGB vase, the compass holes in the circles were filled with small knobs of clay.

26 Fortetsa 195.

27 PGP 309 f. Cf. Jacobsthal, P., Greek Pins 2 f.Google Scholar

28 Fortetsa 201, pl. 171, 192.

29 Cf. PGP 308. Gold rings are comparatively common, ibid. 310 f.

30 Fortetsa 207.

31 Cf. Vrokastro 121 f., fig. 73; BCH lv (1931) 381, fig. 18; 384 f. (Anavlochos); BSA vi (1899–1900) 113 (Dictaean Cave), 83 (Protogeometric tomb near Knossos).

32 Cf. Kerameikos iv. 19 f., pl. 32; v. 1, 23, pl. 157; and from the graves excavated by I. Papademetriou at Nea Ionia. Some of the Attic examples are about three times the size of the Cretan, and the decoration occurs also on whorls of a different shape. Other examples outside Crete may be Lindos i, pl. 10, 152–3; EADélos xviii, pl. 83, 704. 3.

33 BSA xxviii (1926–7) pl. 18, 27.

34 Borda, M., Arte cretese-micenea nel Museo Pigorini di Roma 39, no. 2, pl. 46, 8, &c.Google Scholar

35 Dreros, , Mirabello-Nécropoles pl. 42 D. 71Google Scholar; and cf. PAE 1930. 97, fig. 9 (Amnisos). Phaistos, , Ann. xxxv–xxxvi. 358, fig. 216e.Google Scholar

36 Cf. Kerameikos iv. 19 f., pls. 29–32; v. 1, 139 f., n. 106, for references to other examples from Athens and Eleusis in Protogeometric and Early Geometric contexts.

37 Notably on the so-called Lausitz pottery; see Milojčič, V., AA 1948–1949, 30 f.Google Scholar

38 For examples and references see Goldman, H., Tarsus ii. 328 ff.Google Scholar

39 Cf. Blegen, C. W. and others, Troy iii. 32 f.Google Scholar

40 Ann x–xii. 476; Fortetsa 208. Hogarth mentions hundreds of flat circular blue paste beads in a tomb whose pottery seems largely Protogeometric (BSA vi (1899–1900) 84, Tomb 6).