Greek/Mycenaean/Geometric Pottery

The main groups of the metal ages are:

Early Bronze Age
Middle Bronze Age
Late Bronze Age
A list of schematic LB ware can be seen in BAR, Vol. XVI, Sep/Oct 1990, p. 47.

Early Iron Age
Middle Iron Age
Late Iron Age

Metal ages may be grouped differently depending which specific location one is investigating. In a certain way metal ages and pottery ages are explained by researchers to jive with each other.

Each of the above main group has additional subgroups:

Early Bronze Age I
Early Bronze Age I A
Early Bronze Age I B

We must understand that these age classifications are not sharply outlined in actual archaeological sites. There are overlappings, mixing of periods, upside down periods, and many variables which one can only appreciate by reading reports of excavations, comparisons and papers.

Pottery Ages are similarly arranged:

Early Mycenaean Period I
Early Mycenaean Period II etc.

We can only present some indications in this paper how these classification schemes can contribute to show that historical periods are indicating errors in conventional chronology and help in justifying revised chronology.

Graphical Representation of Pottery Finds and Their Significance

`Unearthing' Past Scholars Beliefs - Revealing Some Roots to the Modern Dating Dilemma
In the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of Aegean specialists believed that Mycenaean civilization immediately preceded the 7th century BC., but because the discovery of Late Helladic remains was still so fresh, they had little other than the better known works of the 1st Millenium with which to compare them. In addition we must keep in mind the soon following discoveries of the Minoan Age artifacts.

Egyptologists noted that the earliest Mycenaean artifacts in Grave Circle A corresponded to the early 18th Dynasty. Flinders Petrie found a large quantity of LH III A to early LH III B pottery in Pharaoh Akhnaton's short-lived capital of Akhetaten in Egypt. Excavators outside Egypt began finding 18th and 19th Dynasty objects beside Mycenaean ware throughout the Levant and the Aegean. At Mycenae itself archaeologists discovered a number of 18th Dynasty Egyptian objects, including some which bear the cartouches of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, Amenhotep III, and his wife Queen Tiy. [150]

Aegean archaeologists, confronted with Egyptian evidence, had to reassess their dates for Mycenaean culture. `Vehement disputes' erupted between those accepting Egyptian dating, and those challenging it as 500-700 years too early. Those who rejected the Egyptian chronological scheme usually branded the New Kingdom exports to the Aegean Sea countries as centuries old heirlooms. [170] That explanation was weak for a number of reasons:

1. it did not explain depictions of Mycenaean objects in 18th Dynasty murals,
2. it completely failed to explain the presence of Late Helladic (LH) pottery in bona fide 18th Dynasty contexts in Egypt itself.

None of those championing the heirloom theory, unlike us at this website, even dared to consider that the very basis for dating the New Kingdom of Egypt might be incorrect. Cecil Torr was one Aegean specialist who did question the Egyptian chronological scheme, [190] and as a result Torr gained no appreciable following. This is what we mean by `unearthing' the history of the modern discipline of archaeology and ancient historical studies to find out how such a wrong scheme of things could evolve amidst supposedly learned scholars.

Most other Aegean prehistorians, realizing that the Late Helladic Period had to be as early as the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, and accepting the absolute dates furnished by the Egyptologists, pushed the beginning of the Mycenaean Age into the mid-2nd millennium BC. Many, who felt that the inception of the period had to be that old, still wanted the end of the era to last long into the 1st millennium, and thereby connect directly with the similar products of the 8th-6th centuries BC. Beloch and even Flinders Petrie who, through his discoveries and his writings was largely responsible for pushing back LH I - LH III A/ early LH III B to the 16th-14th centuries, still had the remainder of the Mycenaean Age last into the 8th century BC. [200]

The LH III BC figural pottery, more than any other Mycenaean product, seemed to flow directly into the 7th century ware of the Greek world. Since archaeologists agreed that Protogeometric and Geometric pottery also preceded the 7th century, many envisioned an overlap of LH III and Geomtric styles, just as Boehlau, Wide and their followers had proposed a 500-year-earlier overlap of MH and LH styles. Furtwängler, one of the great pioneers in the study of pottery decoration was among that school's foremost proponents.[220]

When further excavation revealed still more New Kingdom Egyptian material alongside the youngest Mycenaean vases, and showed that there was hardly enough LH III BC pottery to last from ca. 1350-700 BC, art historians had to abandon the notion that LH III co-existed with geometric ware as late as the 8th-7th century in Greece itself. We recall that we had two chronologies, one based on internal evidence of Greece itself and the other by comparisons with Egyptian evidence. The former had to give in to the latter, not because they were wrong but it had the weaker defenders unable to see their way through the mace of mistakes of the Egyptian evidence. At this website we provide a platform for those interested to change that.

Despite all those positive factors, Cyprus, for some reason not fully understood, followed the same pattern as the rest of the Mycenaean world at the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. It too, suffered its own long period of destructions, abandonments, cultural desolation, archaeological obscurity, and historical darkness.[320] Dikaios once claimed that its Iron Age ware, which scholars originally felt would continue the LH III tradition for centuries, in fact, made its appearance suddenly on the island, showing little connection with, and no evolution from the Late Bronze Age ware, which it supposedly superseded immediately. Even those who reject his opinion do not view it as a continuation of figural LH III.[325] Dikaios and others (including his critics) noted some instances where Cypriote Iron Age ware, like its counterpart in Greece, seems to have bypassed Late Bronze Age ceramics, resembling instead 500-year-older Middle Bronze Age pottery.[330] Since countless authorities have long noted, and still note, that the late 8th-7th century pottery of Greece, Sicily, Aegina, Melos, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus and eastern Anatolia seems a direct continuation of LH III BC shapes and decoration;[335] since they have not found artistic continuity in any of those areas; and since they see too many close resemblances for the similarities to be merely "fortuitous" [340], they view the phenomenon as a "renaissance".[345] Even so, with ca. 400 years separating the last LH III C figural ware from the earliest return to that bygone style, they need a mechanism to explain the revival. Since no corner of the Greek world kept the style alive during those centuries, some have conjectured that the Mycenaean ceramic and decorative traditions passed beyond the Greek world to Phoenicia, which provided the required continuity, and finally sent the Greek products, along with some Levantine accretions, in a "backwash" to their place of origin hundreds of years later. That theory is extremely popular [350] and explains why art historians refer to 7th century Aegean ware with its Levantine and renascent Mycenaean elements as "Orientalizing".

For continuity of decorative ivories and metalware the situation in the Levant presents as big an obstacle as in Greece (and as big a source of consternation), since there is no evidence of either product from ca. 1200 to 900 B.C.[395] The only Levantine medium for continuity that is left is patterned fabric, which several people now see as the most likely source for LH III motifs' survival.

While there certainly was ornamental cloth, and it could have preserved some LH III decoration, it lends itself more readily to geometrical patterns than to the curvilinear, naturalistic ornaments and figures of LH III C and 7th century ware. Still, if one must limit oneself to only one medium for 400 years of continuous patterning, and disregards its nonappearance in other media, Greece is as probable a candidate as Phoenicia;[400] in any instance, the case is completely unproveable, since all the cloth has vanished, and one can only speculate about its possible ornamentation. Yet another problem with Phoenicia, as the source of, retaining, then returning LH III decoration, is that some "Mycenaean" elements begin to appear in 8th century Greece, before there are any signs of Oriental influence on Greek art; additionally many of the curvilinear motifs and naturalistic figures (especially human) found on 7th century "Orientalizing" ware, and most reminiscent of the LH III C style, did not come from the Levant, but followed the same course as did the 500-year-earlier decorations, evolving directly from the stiffer forms of native Greek ornament which immediately preceded them.[420] Despite the popularity of the notion of a Phoenician link to explain the close similarities of two sets of Aegean vases now dated half a millennium apart, there is still no evidence that the Levant fared any better than did Cyprus or Greece in continuing the LH III artistic tradition until the 7th century.

As an alternative to the still-popular hypothesis of survival, other scholars have postulated a native revival, whereby the Greeks of the late 8th-7th centuries found 500-year-old vases, liked what they saw, and imitated some of the shapes and much of the ornamentation.[430] Such rediscoveries certainly fit the numerous cases where the later Greeks seem to have returned to cities, houses, wells, palaces, tombs and cult places supposedly abandoned for nearly half a millennium.[435] Still, one had to explain why only then, and at no time during the previous 500 years did the Greeks decide to return to those palaces and copy the bygone art. There is a popular notion, to which we shall return that the later Greeks, hearing Homer's epics, gained a new pride in their heritage, and consciously sought out the relics of the Trojan War heroes.[440] Taking that antiquarian devotion one step further, some observers have proposed that the later Greeks recognized the LH III BC ware in those places as belonging to the "Age of Heroes," and copied it to strengthen their ties of identity with their forebears.[445] K. de Vries has challenged that view on the reasonable that the 8th-7th-century Greeks would not have been knowledgeable enough to identify the particular type of pottery used in the Heroic Age after so long a gap.[450]

C.G. Starr recently called the similarities of late 8th-7th cerntury wares to LH III BC pottery "particularly puzzling and intriguing" [455] There have been several attempts to explain that phenomenon in terms of a 5th century revival or survival, but none stands up to careful scrutiny. Some 75 years ago C.C. Edgar, who recognized that 7th century ware resembled LH III C, just as 11th century Protogeometric resembled 16th century Middle Bronze ware, felt that somehow the two revivals, after "obscure" 500-year gaps, followed the same pattern, and probably had the same explanation, whatever it happened to be.[460] Wide, Böhlau, Dörpfeld, Furtwängler and others, who favored survivals rather than revivals, sought to explain the similarities by synchronizing the Geometrical and Mycenaean styles, but they also ran afoul of 500 years.[465] While I would not equate Middle Helladic with Protogeometric or LH III C with Orientalizing ware, since each group does have very distinctive shapes and designs which the other lacks, I would point out that, under a dating system which has eliminated 500 Alexander at Karnak years, the early idea of co-existing styles would explain close similarities, which, under the current chronological framework, merely puzzle and intrigue.

Ceramics and Pottery in Israel

Graphical Representation of Pottery Finds and Their Significance

Abydos (Abusir, Sakkara, Tarkhan, Lahun)

Tell Judeideh, Gal'at Er-Russ, Byblos, Lebea, Beth Yerah (Kirbet Kerak), Beth Shean, Megiddo, Tell El-Far'ah(n), Tell En-Nasbeh, Ay, Gezer, Jericho, Beit Sahur, Lachish, Arad, Bab `Edh-Dhr'a.

Includes painted and red-polished wares. Firing temperatures around 500-700 °C.

Described as EB Canaanite.

Abydos

Ai, Lachish, Yarmuth, and others...

The so-called `metallic' ware because when struck with a finger it has a high-pitched metallic sound. Firing temperatures around 900 °C.

1. plentiful yields of red-slipped ware
   
2. plentiful yields of red-burnished ware
   
3. rare yields of red hand-burnished ware
   
4. absence of red wheel-burnished ware.

For more go Here

Anatolian Grey Polished Ware from Tell Miqne (Ekron).

About 5 sherds and one smaller sherd of Anatolian grey polished ware were found which feature an incised wavy line decoration. They were conventionally dated to the end of the Late Bronze Age, and were found in field I, stratum VIIIA.

Stratum VII was then differentiated apparently on the basis of what is described as a new locally produced pottery resembling Mycenaean IIIC:1b type. Of this type an enormous amount was found. Besides these pottery types also Mycenaean IIIB and Cypriote imports were found as well as plain and painted Canaanite coarse ware and two Egyptian style vessels. Since the homes on Tell Miqna were constructed on a hill side stratum VIII is not flat but the drawing shows what appear to be three levels, while stratum VII seems to consist of one a little higher located level.

Besides these items mentioned numerous other finds were made and conclusions drawn which are documented in the following sources. A word of caution, maps may vary considerably as to where Ekron was located in relation to Ashdod and Gath. If that indicates that Tell Miqne is Ekron or not, we don't know. [500]

A List of Type Pottery from Various Eras and Locations

1. An Athenian painted vase of ca. 470 BC showing Croesus on the pire.
   
2. A painted mixing bowl (krater) made by Euphronius of the 6th century BC showing `Sleep and Death'.
   
3. See also the `Francoise Vase' of the Florence archaeological Museum, a krater (mixing bowl for wine) signed by Ergotimus as the potter and Cleituas as the painter, ca. 570/560 BC. Surround paintings are in 5 levels. a) a boar hunt, b) Diomedes in his chariot and prancing horses, c) chariots and walking horses, d) figures and horses, e) legendary winged figures and designs. [`Who was Who in the Greek World', p. 80]
   
4. An amphora of ca. 540 BC made by Exekias showing Achilles and Ajax playing a game and a flat drinking cup made by the same artisan.
   
5. Four types of wares from Jezreel and Megiddo are compared in BAR, Vol. 28, Nov/Dec 2002, p. 46.
   
6. The pottery types of Khirbet Qumran in BA, Vol. 49, Sep. 1986, p. 144, 145.

   Conclusion: For most of the period of the evolution of the Metal and Pottery Ages these were described during excavations and examinations on the basis of physical characteristics like shape, apparent manufacturing techniques and the like. Less frequently these implements and wares were chemically and microscopically examined. In our opinion that would cause a whole new dimension to the problem on how to "assign" these items. Probably no one wants to spend his weekends in doing that today. It is a mute subject. It is not cost effective and so tradition and "quick eye" examination by hundreds or more of experts trained to know exactly to which period each item belongs, goes on. Rattling the cage is obviously not well liked and so, you make up your own mind. [550]

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[100] Lacy, (1967), p. 223; Cf. "The Entrance to the Citadel," ns. 8-13.

[150] J.D.S. Pendlebury, Aegyptiaca (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 53-57. More recently see Hankey-Warren, (1974).

[170] A.S. Murray, `Excavations in Cyprus (London, 1900), pp. 21-24; D.G.Hogarth, `Excavations at Ephesus (London, 1908), p. 242.

[190] C. Torr, `Memphis and Mycenae (Cambridge, 1896)] but Egyptologists countered with strong and at times unfair retorts, H. Hall, (1901), pp. 56-59 (to which see Torr's response in his review of Hall's book in `The Classical Review 16 (1902), pp. 182-187.

[200] References in Tsountas-Manatt, (1897), p. 231, n.1.

[220] A. Furtwängler, `Die Bronzefunde aus Olympia und deren Kunstgeschichtliche Bedeutung', Berliner Abhandlungen 4 (1879), pp. 45-47 (reprinted in `Kleine Schriften I' (Munich, 1911), pp. 373-375;
F. Dümmler, `Zu den Vasen aus Kameiros', JdI, 6 (1891), pp. 270-271;
J.N. Coldstream, `Geometric Greece', London, 1977.
Murray, (1900),. p. 23;
Hall, (1901), p. 36, n. 1;
cf. Demargue (1964, p. 271) and Cook (1972, pp. 310, 312-313) for modern comments.

[240] Cook, loc. cit.; Hall, (1901), pp. 36, 45, 62-63, III, 132, 137, 221-222, 229, 246, 255 n. 1, 259-260, 264-265, 274, 279, 283, A. Evans, `A Mycenaean Treasure from Aegina", JHS, 13 (1892-1893), pp. 224, 226.

[245] Snodgrass, (1971), pp. 134-135.

[270] H. Walters, `On Some Antiquities of the Mycenaean Age Recently Acquired By the British Museum', JHS, 17 (1897), pp. 63-64, 77;
Hall, (1901), pp. 36, 63, III, 132, 137, 221, 229, 264-265;
More recently, cf. P. Amandry, `Plaques d'or de Delphes', Ath. Mitt, 77 (1962), p. 54, and C. Berard, `Eretria III' (Bern, 1970), pp. 42-43; cf. ns. 15-16 below.

[273] Hall, (1901), p. 221;
V. Karageorghis, `Cyprus' (London, 1970), p. 67. Karageorghis, ibid., pp. 61-64;
H. Catling, `Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age', CAH 3 II. 2 (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 198-201, 207-213;
Snodgrass, (1971), pp. 29, 314, 365.
[275] H. Karageorghis, ibid., p. 67; idem, `Notes on Some Mycenaean Survivals in Cyprus During the First Millenium BC', Kadmos, I (1962), pp. 72-77; idem, (1967a), pp. 167-170 and (1969), p. 14;
A.R. Burn, `Minoan, Philistines and Greeks, etc.', (London, 1968), p. 230.

[280] Gjerstad, (1948), pp. 298-299; P. Dikaios, `Fifteen Iron Age Vases', Report of the Department of Antiquities. Cyprus [henceforth RDAC], 1937-9 (pub'd 1951), pp. 134, 137-138; idem, `A Guide to the Cyprus Museum' (Nicosia, 1961), p. 63;
Karageorghis, (1962), p. 76; idem, `Treasures in the Cyprus Museum' (Nicosia, 1962), pp. 4, 16-17; idem, `Some Cypriote Painters of Bulls in the Archaic Period', JdI, 80(1965), pp. I, 10-12, 14.

[285] Snodgrass, (1971), pp. 94 (source of the quote), 444 (list of references);
Desborough, (1972), pp. 49-57, 145.

[290] Deborough, ibid., pp. 49-57 (place the disclaimer on p. 57);
Catling, (1968), pp. 53, 221, 301; idem, (1975), pp. 193-196, 209-213;
Karageorghis, (1969), p. 23; idem, (1970), pp. 66, 151.

[320] Dikaios, `An Iron Age Painted Amphora in the Cyprus Museum', BSA, 37 (1936-7), p. 58 n. 3. Others (e.g. Gjerstad, (1948), pp. 282-287) disagree with that assessment. Again, as with Submycenaean (see above `Shaft Grave Art: Modern Problems', n. 54), some Late Cypriote (LC) III pottery and other artifacts obviously follow LC II, and some obviously precede the Cyprio-Geometric period, but I would question the continuity within, and the homogeneity of LC III (cf. J. Du Plat Taylor, `Late Cypriot III in the Light of Recent Excavations', etc., Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly [henceforth PEFQ], 88 (1956), p. 30).

[325] The Iron Age Cypriots did paint representations on some of their pottery, but those were not as common as, and did not directly continue the LH III C figures. There were gaps - some huge - during which many familiar forms disappeared entirely, or else bore little or no similarity to the earlier style; the closest resemblances to LH III B-C motifs belong not to the earliest `post-Mycenaean' ware of Cyprus but to the 8th-7th centuries, as if a renaissance only then took place (Snodgrass, (1971), p. 94; Desborough, (1972), p. 51; Karageorghis - des Gagniers, (1966), pp. 4-6, 15, 47, 62, 94-95, 101, 107-112; cf. n. 16 above).

[330] P. Dikaios, `Principal Acquisitions of the Cyprus Museum', 1937-1939, RDAC, 1937-39 (pub'd, 1951), p. 200, idem, (1961), pp. 203-204; Gjerstad, (1948), pp. 216, 283 (for which, cf. SCE vol. II [Stockholm, 1935], p. 276), 293-294; J.F. Daniel, `Two Late Cypriote III Tombs from Kourion', AJA, 41 (1937) pp. 71, 73-74 (to which see Catling's objection, (1964), pp. 52-53).

[335] In addition to the citations of ns. 9, 16 above, see inter alia Cook, (1972), pp. 41, 44; Edgar, (1904), p. 106; Starr, (1961), p. 244; Broneer, (1939), p. 361; Berard, (1970), pp. 42-43; Friis Johansen, (1966), pp. 5, 9, 19, 34, 48-50, 55-56, 63-64, 131; J. P. Droop, `Dipylon Vases from the Kynosarges Site', BSA, 12 (1905-6), pp. 84-85, 90-91; D. Burr, `A Geometric House and a Proto-Attic Votive Deposit', Hesperia, 2 (1933), p. 632; J. Pendlebury, `The Archaeology of Crete', (London, 1939) p. 335; R. Young, `Late Geometric Graves and a Seventh Century Well in the Agora', (Athens, 1939), pp. 49. 177, 186-187. 217; W. Taylour, Mycenaean Pottery Italy and Adjacent Areas, (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 113, 116, 120, 136, 142, 157; E. Vermeule, `The Fall of the Mycenaean Empire', Archaeology 13 (1960), p. 74; J. Boardman, `The Cretan Collection in Oxford', (Oxford, 1961) pp. 57-58, 144 (confusion and debates over dating), 151; E. Brann, `The Athenian Agora VIII'; `Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery', (Princeton, 1962), pp. 15, 19, 43, 48, 51;.

[340] Langlotz, Ancient Greek Sculpture of South Italy and Sicily (tr. A. Hicks) (New York, 1965), p. 15; G.K. Galinsky, `Aeneas, Sicily and Rome' (Princeton, 1969), pp. 82-84, 89; J.L. Benson, `Horse, Bird & Man', (Amherst, 1970), (Amherst, 1970), pp. 5-6 and passim J. N. Coldstream, `The Cesnola Painter: A Change of Address', BICS, 13 (1971), p. II; etc. etc. Vermeule, (1960), p. 74.

[345] Demargne, (1964), p. 271.

[350] J. Droop, `The Pottery from Arcadia, Crete', `Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology', 12 (1925), p. 11 (whence the term "backwash" ); M. Hartley, `Early Greek Vases from Crete', BSA, 29 (1930-1), pp. 62, 64, 86-37; D. Levi, `Early Hellenic Pottery of Crete', Hesperia 14 (1945), pp. 1, 9-10; Cook, (1972), p. 41; R. Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art (New York, 1967), p. 190.

[355] Snodgrass, (1971), pp. 107-109; F. Stubbings, `Mycenaean Pottery from the Levant' (Cambridge, 1951); V. Hankey, `Mycenaean Pottery in the Middle East', BSA, 62 (1967), pp. 104-147; idem, `Mycenaean Trade with the South-Eastern Mediterranean', Melanges de L'Universite Saint Joseph, 46.2 (1970), pp. 11-30. See also J. Boardman, `Al Mina and History', 1990, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 9, 169-90. Starting from ca. the 8th century BC, pottery from the Greek trading colony of Al Mina resembles strikingly Philistine pottery in some of its styles and motifs. Some suggest that at most a few decades separate the Al Mina ware from the Philistine wares further south.

[360] Velikovsky, (1977, pp. 129-138 and 1978, pp. 80-81) has redated that document (Wenamon) and the entire 21st dynasty to the Persian Period.

[365] 2. Sam. 5:11; 1. Kings 5:15-32, 7:13-46; 2.Chron. 2:1-15.

[390] Benson, (1970), p. 5; Cook, (1972), p. 41; Robertson, (1975), pp. 23-24.

[395] For ivories, see below `Ivory Carvings', ns. 6-7; For metalware, many authorities have long noted that 9th-7th century Phoenician decorated bowls "continue the tradition" of similar bowls from Ugarit of 18th Dynasty date (e.g., H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient [Baltimore, 1963], pp. 150, 195; Strong, (1966), p. 53; S. Moscati, `The World of the Phoenicians' [tr. A. Hamilton] [London, 1968], pp. 67-68), and closely resemble 19th Dynasty metalware from Tell Basta in Egypt (e.g., W.K. Simpson, `The Vessels with engraved designs and the Repoussé Bowl from the Tell Basta Treasure', Journal of Near Eastern Studies [henceforth JNES], 24 [1965], p. 28).
As in the case of Greek figural art (cf. `Shaft Grave Art: Modern Problems', ns. 57-66 and ns. 1-28 above). Orientalists treating decorated metalware have split into two camps. Those who have championed survival attribute extraordinary conservatism to Phoenician artisans who, without leaving a trace, somehow continued to produce metal ware in the 9th-6th centuries, which differed little, if at all, from 18th-19th Dynasty antecedents (e.g., Murray, (1900), pp. 27-29; Hall, (1901), pp. 137, 251-252; C. Schaeffer, Ugaritica II [Paris, 1949], p. 47). Those advocating revival proposed a conscious copying of 500-year-old forms (e.g., J.L. Myres, `Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus' [New York, 1914], p. 275; cf. Hall, `Oriental Art of the Saite Period', in CAH1 - III [Cambridge, 1925] [ed. J.B. Bury et al.], p. 327; Dikaios, (1951), p. 137; Strong, (1966), p. 53; for a fuller discussion, cf. Isaacson, (1974), p. 15).
Some of the metal bowls from uncertain contexts have provoked heated debates between those who, seeing Minoan Mycenaean and Egyptian New Kingdom analogies, have assigned them to the Late Bronze Age (e.g., Myres, Ibid, pp. 457-460; Fr. von Bissing, `Eine Bronzeschale mykenischer Zeit', JdI, 13 [1898], p. 37; idem, `Ägyptisch oder Phoinikisch?', JdI, 25 [1910], pp. 193-199; idem, `Untersuchungen über die 'phoinikischen' Metal schen', JdI, 38-39 [1923-1924], p. 190), and those who, acknowledging the 500-year-older elements, still insisted on 9th-6th century dates for those same items (e.g. Murray, ibid., pp. 27-29; Hall, ibid., [1901], pp. 137, 251-252, [1925], p. 327; F. Studniczka, `Der Rennwagen in Syrisch-phoinikischen Gebiet', JdI, 22 (1907), p. 75; H. Schäfer, `Ägyptische Goldschmiedearbeiten' [Berlin, 1910], p. 66; E. Gjerstad, `Decorated Metal Bowls from Cyprus', Op. Arch., 4 (1946), pp. 2-17). For similar problems with Aegean bronzes, cf. below `A Terracotta Figurine and a Terracotta Head', n. 16.

[400] For decorated Phoenician textiles as the chief medium of continuous transmission, cf, inter al., H. Payne, Necrocorinthia (Oxford, 1931), p. 54; Benson, (1970), pp. 55, 111-113, 122-123; Cook, (1972), p. 41. From the extremely rare specimens of later Greek cloth that have survived, one sees that, at least by the classical period, the Greeks could and did transfer curvilinear and naturalistic designs to cloth from paintings on smooth surfaces, where such motifs are far quicker and easier to create (cf. G. Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art [New York, 1969], pp. 380-383).
It is somewhat hazardous to reconstruct the actual designs of textiles from their depictions in paintings, since the latter may show a style less rigid than, and possibly completely different from those on the cloth itself. (H. Kantor, `The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium B.C.?' AJA, 51 (1947), pp. 43-44); nevertheless, to judge by Mycenaean Age frescoes, Aegean textile workers had already begun to adorn cloth with representational designs including floral motifs, monsters and animals, which seem to have vanished from Dark Age pottery, only to "return" in the seventh century (cf. E. Evans, (1935), vol. II [1928], fig. 456, pls. 25-27, and vol. III [1930], figs. 25-26—if correctly restored and interpreted; Vermeule, (1971), p. 193 and pi. 28A-B; S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera VII [Athens, 1976], p. 36 and pi. 65).
While it is true that Homer mentioned "colorful" Phoenician cloth (II. VI; 289-295), he does not describe its design, which might merely have been woven stripes; he does, however, describe the representational adornments of battle scenes and flowers which Helen and Andromache created on cloth (II. III;125-128; XXII:441). If the "taboo" on figural pottery did not extend to textiles, Greek artisans could have kept the styles alive as easily as the Phoenicians allegedly did.

[420] Benson, (1970), passim; Snodgrass, (1971), pp. 54, 417-418; Cook, (1972), pp. 41-43. But cf. J. Carter, `The Beginning of Narrative Art in the Geometric Period' BSA, 67 (1972) pp. 25-58, who seeks to push back the earliest Oriental influence.

[430] Benson, ibid., passim; Brann, (1962), p. 19.

[435] Cf. above "The Entrance to the Citadel," n. 13 and "Later Use of the Grave Circles," n. 14; below "The Palace," ns. 6-8 and "The Design of the Palace," n. 31.

[440] Cf. n. below.

[445] Benson, (1970) passim; Karageorghis, (1962), pp. 72, 76-77.

[450] K., de Vries, Review of Benson's Horse. Bird & Man, AJA,76 (1972), pp. 99-100.

[455] Starr, (1961, p. 244.)

[460] Edgar, (1904, p. 106.)

[465] Cf. "Shaft Grave Art: Modern Problems," n. 60 and n. 9 above.

[500] See S. Gitin and T. Dothan and others, `The Rise and Fall of Ekron of the Philistines' in BA, Dec 1987, p. 197ff; Also images of artifacts from Tel-Miqne/Ekron in BAR, Vol. 19, Jan/Feb 1993, p. 32-35; Vol. XVI, Jan/Feb 1990, p. 20-36. Images include: a) a small, four-wheeled, bronze cultic stands reminiscent of 1.Kings 7:30-34, b) a square shaft, double-headed bronze linchpin (p. 34) of a type which may have been used to secure a wheel to the axle of a chariot.; In the 1993 BAR copy we see a full page color image of a bronze juglet among several pottery juglets of the same type found in the main building of the southern industrial zone of Ekron. These juglets look very much like an LB dipper juglet from Jericho found by K. Kenyon except that the Ekron type has a flat and the Jericho type (5)a more pointed bottom.]
For information on the Ekron 77 piece, 2 pound, silver hoard including silver ingots and precious jewelry probably hidden at the time of the Babylonian invasion ca. 603 BC, see BA, Vol. 55, Sep 1992, p. 152.

[550] Source: `Who was Who in the Greek World', p. 88, 110.