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Grey Wares from Lesbos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Extract

The north-west corner of Asia Minor, Lesbos and, in particular, Mytilene, have long been recognised as the home of these grey wares called Lesbian or Aeolic bucchero. With remarkable tact, citizens of Mytilene resident in Naukratis proved the point by inscribing their names and place of origin on the grey vases they dedicated. Their evidence was, however, supplemented by the discovery of grey pottery like their own in towns as near Lesbos as Larissa and Troy VIII.

Several centuries before Lesbian bucchero flourished, the same district produced a distinguished grey ware of which the home was in the sixth city of Troy. This pottery left descendants in the seventh city—side by side with the Buckelkeramik—and these descendants would seem to be the direct ancestors of the bucchero of Troy VIII, Lesbos and other Aeolic sites.

Returning to Troy VI, we find that some of its grey wares are unmistakably Minyan, which enables us to carry the pedigree further back still. Minyan ware is found in the second Minoan period, about 1900 B.C. Nor can it be denied that the fabrics of Troy VI are derived ultimately from those of Troy II and Troy I.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1932

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References

1 Gardner, , Naukratis, II, pp. 47, 48. 50, 51, 65Google Scholar. Löschke, , AA. 1891, p. 18Google Scholar. Karo, , de arte vascularia, p. 25Google Scholar. Böhlau, , Aus ionischen… Necropolen, pp. 96, and 120Google Scholar, distinguishes Lesbian and Samian bucchero. For other literature on the class, see Pfuhl, , MuZ. pp. 153–5Google Scholar.

2 Dörpfeld, , Troja und Ilion, pp. 296303Google Scholar.

3 Böhlau, op. cit. p. 96, comments on the continuity of Trojan wares and Aeolic bucchero.

4 Forsdyke, in JHS. xxxiv, p. 126 ff.Google ScholarChilde, in JHS. xxxv, p. 199 ff.Google Scholar

5 Forsdyke, in Vol. I. 1 of the British Museum Catalogue, has already pointed out that ‘the original black-polished ware…developed…under…conditions of conservative tradition and merely technical improvement, into the classical bucchero nero of Aeolis’ (p. xii).

6 Myres, , Who were the Greeks? p. 247Google Scholar.

7 Pfuhl, loc. cit.

8 Most of this material will appear in a forthcoming number of the Prähistorische Zeitschrift.

9 I should like, also, to express my gratitude to Mr. Walters for permission to publish the British Museum vases on Pl. I and in fig. 5.

10 Technau, , AM. liv, p. 48Google Scholar, describes a Hellenistic pseudo-bucchero. Cf. also Walters, Br. Mus. Cat. of Lamps, p. xxi.

11 E.g. B.M. 64. 10–7. 1576 from Rhodes, and 88. 6–1. 647, from Naukratis.

12 Smith, C. in Petrie, Naukratis, I, p. 49Google Scholar. Gardner, , Naukratis, II, pp. 4751, 65Google Scholar.

13 B.M. 60. 2–1. 13, 64. 10–7. 1415 and 1576.

14 AM. liv, p. 48.

15 For general references, see Pfuhl, op. cit. pp. 153–5. For distribution, see especially Blinkenberg, , Lindes, p. 275 ff.Google Scholar, and Prinz, , Naukratis, p. 57 ff.Google Scholar

16 Schmidt, , Schliemann's Sammlung (hereafter referred to as SS.), 2469Google Scholar. See 2243 for possible derivation from zigzag.

17 de Genouillac, , Céramique cappadocienne, I, pp. 34–6Google Scholar. The date suggested for this Cappadocian ware is M.M. III.

18 Lower part of body restored.

19 This evidence comes from one trench only and may require modification next season.

20 Inv. 1932. 2–18. 1.

21 As many of the photographs supplied had no scale, I have pasted them up irrespective of size.

22 Schliemann, , Ilios, pp. 706 ff.Google Scholar

23 E.g. Payne, Necrocorinthia, pls. 35, 47.