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Phylakopi 1911 and the History of the Later Cycladic Bronze Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

R. Barber
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Extract

For many years, interpretation of the history of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the Cyclades has depended almost entirely on the late nineteenth-century excavations of the British School at Phylakopi on Melos. This site has been especially significant as the only one with a comprehensive stratigraphie sequence.

Recent major excavations on Kea (Ayia Irini) and Thera (Akrotiri) have vastly increased our knowledge of the second-millennium Cyclades, but Phylakopi remains of outstanding importance. From the publication and from the Daybooks kept by Duncan Mackenzie it is clear that the technical standards of the excavation were extremely high for their time. It is unfortunate, however, that precise details about the contexts of individual finds are lacking from Phylakopi. Such details are vital if we are to make any useful reassessment of the history and external relations of the site in terms of subsequent excavations and studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 69 , November 1974 , pp. 1 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1974

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References

Acknowledgements. The work on which this article is based forms part of a Ph.D. thesis (University of St. Andrews) and, as such, has been aided by awards from the following: the British School at Athens (School Studentship), the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Meyerstein Fund (Oxford University), the University of St. Andrews Travel Fund; and by a period of leave of absence generously granted by the University of Glasgow. To all these bodies I am greatly indebted.

For help and advice of various kinds, I should like to thank Mrs. K. Bolton (née Scholes), Professor J. L. Caskey, Professor Sp. Iakovides, Mr. M. R. Popham, and Professor A. C. Renfrew. My special gratitude is due to Dr. H. W. Catling for much patient advice and criticism. The responsibility for remaining defects is naturally mine alone.

I have received a great deal of kind assistance from members of the Greek Archaeological Service in the Cyclades, Dr. C. Doumas, Mr. Y. Tsedakis, Dr. and Mrs. N. Zaphiropoulos, and from the staff of the museum on Melos, Mr. S. Markandonis and Mr. A. Karamitsos.

The figures are the work of Mrs. A. Watrous and the typescript of Mrs. Christa Mee. For their generous and willing help in these and many other ways, I cannot give adequate thanks.

Abbreviations other than standard

FM, FS = Motifs and shapes as enumerated in Arne Furumark, The Mycenaean Pottery, Analysis and Classification, 1941.

MM Cat = Catalogue of Pottery from Phylakopi in the Melos Museum (see below, 2).

PM = SirEvans, Arthur, The Palace of Minos at Knossos i–iv, 1921–1936.Google ScholarPMB= Pottery notebook of the 1911 season at Phylakopi (see below, 2).

SNB = Site notebook of the 1911 season at Phylakopi (see below, 2).

Buck = Buck, Robert J., ‘Middle Helladic Mattpainted Pottery’, Hesperia xxxiii (1964) 231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Eutresis = Hetty Goldman, Excavations at Eutresis in Boeotia, 1931.

Keos Pt I = Caskey, John L., ‘Investigations in Keos. Part I: Excavations and Explorations, 1966–70’, Hesperia xl (1971) 359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Keos Pt 11 = Caskey, John L., ‘Investigations in Keos. Part II: A Conspectus of the Pottery’, Hesperia xli (1972) 357.CrossRefGoogle ScholarKythera = J. N. Coldstream and G. L. Huxley (Edd.), Kythera, 1972.

Mylonas = A, B, 1972.

Pendlebury = J. D. S. Pendlebury, The Archaeology of Crete, 1939.

Phylakopi = T. D. Atkinson and others, Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos (Supplementary Paper of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies), 1904.

Renfrew = Colin Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C., 1972.

Scholes = Scholes, K., ‘The Cyclades in the Later Bronze Age: A Synopsis’, BSA li (1956) 9.Google Scholar

Thera i–v = Spyridon Marinatos, Excavations at Thera, Preliminary Reports I–V (Seasons 1967–71), 1968–72.

Zervos = Christian Zervos, L'Art des Cyclades, 1957.

1 Published in Phylakopi.

2 For publications to date on the Ayia Irini site see Keos Pt I 359 n. 1 and Keos Pt II 357 n. 2. For Akrotiri see Thera i–v.

3 Duncan Mackenzie, Daybook of the Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos 1896–99. Unpublished transcript by Colin Renfrew.

4 BSA xvii (1910–11) 1–22 pis. i-xiv.

5 Items 2, 3, and 4 are in the Library of the British School at Athens.

6 Chapter X.

7 BSA xvii 3.

8 Chapter IV.

9 Phylakopi 239–43.

10 Renfrew Chapter X.

11 Phylakopi 243–54.

12 Op. cit. 105.

13 Op. cit. 254–63.

14 Op. cit. 263–72.

15 Op. cit. 259–61.

16 BSA xvii 19.

17 BSA xvii 20.

18 Renfrew 511.

19 This vase is incorrectly noted in the Melos Museum Catalogue as being BSA xvii pl. x. 86.

20 Keos Pt II 387.

21 Ibid. 381, 388.

22 Phylakopl 270.

23 Scholes 35.

24 SNB 6.

25 PNB 9a.

26 See below, Section 13.

27 Phylakopl 105.

28 Op. cit. 96.

29 Op. cit. 103.

30 Op. cit. 94.

31 See above, n. 27.

32 Zervos pl. 234.

33 Scholes 14.

34 Buck 247, Shape CI (Barrel Jar); also 287.

35 Phvlakopl 249 and pl. viii. 4.

36 The convex upper profile seems characteristic of the MH pithoi, e.g. Hesperia xxiv (1955) pl. 12b (from Lerna).

37 Scholes 14.

38 See above.

39 Buck M100.

40 Keos Pt II fig. 8.

41 Phylakopl 250–1, where vases like pl. ix. 2 are said to have come from contexts earlier than I–iii, but most of the vases on pl. ix with rudimentary curvilinear motifs to belong to the final floors of I.

42 Op. cit. 98.

43 See above, n. 41.

44 Phylakopl pl. xiv.

45 See Scholes 14 for references.

46 Renfrew 511.

47 See also Phylakopl pl. viii. 8 and 12; pl. x. 1–5.

48 section 7. 3.

49 For details of this form see Phylakopl 102 and refs.

50 I refer to the three successive types described in Phylakopl 103, as 2a, 2bi, and 2bii.

51 Phylakopl pl. xi. 2; pl. xii. 24, 26, 27.

52 (1969), Πτν. viii, ἀρ. 6945.

53 Phylakopl 259, 260.

54 Op. cit. 156 and pl. xxiv. 15, also Scholes 14.

55 Op. cit. 171.

56 Keos Pt II E24. (pl. 88).

57 Cf. Hesperia xxvi (1957) pl. 43b.

58 Keos Pt II 376 and 387.

59 Phylakopl 152; BSA xvii. 19.

60 See n. 59.

61 AM xlii (1917) pl. 56.

62 Phylakopl 251–2.

63 AE 1899 pl. ix. 6, 24, 27.

64 Keos Pt II 381, 383; see also sherds from Phylakopl in ADelt xxii (1967) pl. 346 δ.

65 Phylakopl 152 and MM443 (FIG. 3 and PLATE Ib).

66 152.

67 Op. cit. 153fr.; BSA xvii. 19; Schales 16.

68 Eleusis: Κ. Κουρουνιώτης, Ἐλενοινιακά 1932, Εἰκ. 59, though the vases illustrated have thinner feet than the Phylakopl examples; Mycenae, : BSA xxv (1934–1935) fig. 44.Google Scholar

69 Unless Eutresis fig. 133, 10 (EHII).

70 Pendlebury pl. xvii, 2d and 3a–33.

71 Pendlebury pl. xxii. 2.

72 See also ADelt xx ( 1965) 514 and pl. 645 δ for an interesting recent surface find.

73 BSA xvii. 19.

74 Keos Pt II D128–33 (fig. 9 and pl. 84).

75 Op. cit. 387.

76 For this terminology and a most illuminating discussion of the MH period see Howell, R. J., ‘The origins of the Middle Helladic Culture’, in Crossland, R. A. and Birchall, Ann (Edd.), Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean, 1973, 73.Google Scholar I am extremely grateful to Mr. Howell for allowing me to see a draft of his article in advance of publication.

77 Scholes 18 discussed this section under the dual headings of Curvilinear and Naturalistic Style.

78 Phylakopi 106.

79 Schales 18.

80 For motifs see Phylakopi 109.

81 Amorgos: CVA Denmark i pl. 37, 3; Kea: Keos Pt II D62, 63, 69; apparently none in F; Naxos: Renfrew pl. 13, I; Tenos: Scholes 19; Knossos: Renfrew 199 and pl. 13, 2; Lerna, : Hesperia xxvi (1957) 152Google Scholar, illustrated in Archaeology ix (1956) 219.

82 Thera iv col. pl. H and pl. 69b.

83 Thera ii pl. 36.

84 For motifs see Phylakopi 110.

85 Op. cit. 114.

86 Op. cit. 260.

87 Op. cit. 114, 106.

88 Op. cit. 260.

89 Keos Pt II F 25–29 (pl. 91).

90 Op. cit. 393.

91 Thera v 31 and pl. 62.

92 Mylonas 290 and references, especially pls. 53 and 115;355 (for chronological discussion).

93 Karo, G., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (1930) pl. clxxiii. 953, 943.Google Scholar

94 Korakou 25b and fig. 34 2, 6, 11, 14.

95 PM i. fig. 421,8.

96 Pendlebury 202, fig. 36, 7.

97 Phylakopi 262, 264.

98 Op. cit. 264; PM i 557.

99 Archaeological Reports 1971–2, 24.

100 Frödin, O. and Persson, A. W., Asine (1938) 295 fig. 203, 2Google Scholar; AAA iv (1971) 2, 148 fig. 4.

101 Biegen, Carl W., Korakou (1921) 25.Google Scholar

102 Mylonas 144 and pl. 127b, 2 (Grave Λ).

103 Thera ii col. pls. A and C8; Thera v col. pl. A.

104 Thera ii. 44 fig. 30; Phylakopi 120 fig. 92.

105 Thera ii col. pl. A.

106 Mylonas 57 and pl. 44a (Grave Γ).

107 Thera ii. 14 fig. 5.

108 Pendlebury 202, fig. 36, 7 and 12.

109 Scholes 24.

110 For MH antecedents of the type see FS 135.

111 OpArch vi. 195.

112 Ibid. n. 5; see also Scholes 24 ff.

113 Phylakopi 264; BSA xvii. 13, 14.

114 BSA xvii. 14.

115 Keos Pt II 391.

116 OpArch vi. 195 n. 5.

117 For references to published sherds of this ‘close’ style of decoration see Phylakopi 133 and OpArch 198 nn. 6 and 7.

118 Thera v pl. 66b left is verging on our types.

119 Keos Pt II 392.

120 Phylakopi 135.

121 Furumark's Stemmed Conical Bowl, OpArch vi. 195 n. 5.

122 Thera ii pl. 34, I.

123 Phylakopi 139.

124 Phylakopi 139 and pl. xxxv. 6 and 9.

125 e.g. Keos Pt II 397 and H22–25 (fig. 13); Phylakopi 139 and pl. xxxvi. 3.

126 Keos Pt II fig. 14 (LH III).

127 Op. cit. 391, 393, 397.

128 143; also BSA iv. 36 and 43 ff.

129 Thera i fig. 36, Thera iv pl. 101a.

130 Renfrew 511.

131 AM xlii (1917) pl. 15.

132 Thera iii fig. III.

133 Keos Pt II D121, 122, 123 (fig. 9, pls. 83–5).

134 Phylakopi 145.

135 Op. cit. 144.

136 Op. cit. 145.

137 Keos Pt II D76 (pl. 85) and 145 (pl. 83), F23, 24 (fig. 12), 31, 32.

138 Phylakopi 145; BSA xvii. 18; OpArch vi. 193 ff.; Scholes 30.

139 See below; BSA xvii. 18 and pl. xii.

140 These vases were described in the original report as LM II, BSA xvii. 14.

141 Kythera 302; BICS xvi (1969) 150.

142 Renfrew 198 and Table 1. 31.

143 PM i fig. 437.

144 Thera iii figs. 34 and 35.

145 See above, 2.

146 Renfrew 170.

147 Op. cit. 174 and 510 fig. Appx. 1. 2.

148 Keos Pt II 362 and Renfrew 174.

149 R. J. Howell, ‘The Origins of the Middle Helladic Culture’, Crossland and Birchall 84 (cf. note 76).

150 Renfrew 534.

151 CAH ch. xxvi (a). For Crete see Warren, P. M., Myrtos, an Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete (1972) 269 ff.Google Scholar

152 Buck 283 ff.

153 See above, n. 76.

154 Popham, M. R. and Sackett, L. H., Excavations at Lef kandi, Euboea, 1964–66 (1968) 10.Google Scholar

155 See above, 18, 23.

156 BSA xvii. 17.

157 Keos Pt II 376.

158 See above, 27.

159 See above, 33–5. From Circle B note especially Mylonas 68 and pl. 53α2 (Γ–59); 135 and pls. 115αι and 2, β (Λ–119 and 120); 144 and pl. 127 β2 (Λ1–114); 166 and pl. 143αβ, (N–165); 354 for chronology. For Circle A, see Karo, op. cit. 164, no. 947 (pl. 81), a Black and Red Style Jug and 165, no. 953 (pl. clxxiii), a Panelled Cup, both from Grave VI.

160 Renfrew 510, fig. Appx. 1. 2, and 524, fig. Appx. 1. 6; Scholes 10 ff.

161 AAA vi (1973) i. 101. I am most grateful to Miss Philippaki for discussing her work with me.

162 ADelt xx (1965) 506 n. 4.

163 Scholes 13.

164 Phylakopi Chapter III.

165 Op. cit. 261.

166 Keos Pt II 387.

167 Vermeule, E. T., Greece in the Bronze Age (1964) 90 ff.Google Scholar

168 Phylakopi 263.

169 Keos Pt II 391.

170 Phylakopi 267 and above, pp. 14, 16.

171 OpArch vi. 194.

172 See above, p. 46.

173 Phylakopi 263; Keos Pt II 391.

174 See above, 35.

175 See the list of destructions complled by D. L. Page in his The Santorini Volcano and the Destruction of Minoan Crete (1970) 3 ff.; Keos Pt II 393; Kythera 292. Kythera seems to have been abandoned radier than destroyed at the end of LM IB but the site may have suffered some destruction and been repaired within the LM IB period.

176 Ada of the First International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Thera (1971) 371.

177 Archaeological Reports 1970–71, 31.

178 See above, n. 176. Support for a substantial interval between eruption and explosion comes from a note by Money, James in Antiquity xlvii (1973) 50.Google Scholar Mr. Money recognized a humus layer on the site at Akrotiri, supposedly formed between the two events.

179 e.g. Hood, Sinclair, The Home of the Heroes (1967) 110.Google Scholar Mr. Hood, however, argues against these signs being specifically Mycenaean.

180 Unexplored Mansion: Popham, M. R., ‘The Unexplored Mansion at Knossos: A Preliminary Report on the Excavations from 1967 to 1972, Part I: The Minoan building and its occupation’, in Archaeological Reports 1972–1973, 50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Royal Road: ILN 17 Feb. 1962.

181 Hesperia xl (1971) 122.

182 Hesperia xxxi (1962) 273.

183 Schales 31.

184 CAH 3, chapter xxvii (forthcoming).

185 Loc. cit.

186 e.g. the settlement and associated cemetery at Lygaridia, and Karvounolakkoi, on Naxos, , ADelt xx (1965) 505.Google Scholar

187 ADelt xvi (1960) 249; Ergon 1960, 189ff.

188 Desborough, V. R. d'A., The last Mycenaeans and their Successors (1964), 217 ff.Google Scholar, and, for a detailed discussion of the Cyclades in LH IIIC, ibid. 147 ff.