Northern Intruders in MYC. IIIC?

Author(s): Gisela Walberg

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Spring, 1976), pp. 186-187
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/503414
Accessed: 22-11-2015 01:50 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal
of Archaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Sun, 22 Nov 2015 01:50:02 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
186 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
NORTHERN INTRUDERS IN MYC. IIIC?
In an article, "Ceramic evidence for Northern In-
truders in Southern Greece at the Beginning of the
Late Helladic IIIC Period," AJA 79, I (1975) 17-32,
Jeremy B. Rutter identifies some pottery from Myce-
naean IIIC contexts at Korakou as non-Mycenaean
and takes it as evidence for an intrusive population
related to invaders in the Troad and with an ultimate
origin in Bulgaria or possibly Roumania.
His theories are based on the following arguments:
(i) The fabric--described as made of coarse clays
containing large amounts of mineral inclusions ranging
up to four millimeters in diameter, generally red,
brown, or gray-is non-Mycenaean.
(2) The vessel types are non-Mycenaean.
(3) The decoration-plastically applied in some
cases and painted in one instance-is non-Mycenaean.
(4) The pottery in question is closely connected
to Trojan VIIb Coarse and Knobbed Ware ("Buckel-
keramik'") and to pottery of the Late Bronze Age
from Bulgaria or Roumania.
Some of these points are open to discussion. To sum
up my objections:'
(i) Most Mycenaean ware is wheelmade, as Rutter
points out, but it must not be forgotten that coarse
handmade ware was made throughout the Mycenaean
era. Burnishing is not common in Mycenaean pottery,
but it did exist and occurs, for instance in an askos
from the Athenian Agora, tomb XVI.2 It also occurs
in two vases from Prosymna. One of them is illus-
trated in Prosymna II.3 The latest material from the
tomb in which it was found is of Myc. IIIA I date.
(2) The vessels which can be identified in the ma-
terial in question are in most cases domestic. Some
of them are basic and hardly classifiable according
to distinct types and have a long history in the Aegean
from the Early Bronze Age on (hole-mouthed jar, coni-
cal jar with opposite horizontal handles, and wide-
mouthed jar). One vessel type, the angular cup with
high vertical handles, is found in Mycenaean con-
texts from Myc. I onwards.4 The oldest Mycenaean
specimens have close affinities to the Minyan "kantha-
roi." Lug handles, which occur in the Korakou ma-
terial, appear already in Myc. IIIA and IIIB vases.5
(3) Applied plastic decoration is common in many
classes of Bronze Age pottery from various areas,
especially on large vessels. The painted decoration is
reported to differ in texture from that of Mycenaean
pottery in general. The motive, however, corresponds
to Furumark's motive 53, Wavy Line.
(4) There are differences in vessel types as well as
1I wish to thank Prof. A. Furumark for reading this note and
for his encouragement. Members of the Uppsala seminar, es-
pecially Dr. R. Higg, have contributed with discussions to this
note. L. Troy checked my English.
2 S.A. Immerwahr, Athenian Agora XIII: The Neolithic and
Bronze Ages (Princeton I97I) pl. 47 (Grave XVI).
3 C. Blegen, Prosymna, part 2 (Cambridge
1937) fig. I10o.
4 A. Furumark, The Mycenaean Pottery. Analysis and Classi-
fication (Stockholm 1942)-hereafter abbreviated MP-55 and
This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Sun, 22 Nov 2015 01:50:02 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
[AJA 80
in decoration from Trojan VIIb pottery. Hole-mouthed
jars are not frequent in the Trojan material. A
Knobbed Ware wide-mouthed jar with horseshoe lug
handles has been published from Troy.6 It is, however
-if one is going to discuss such fine distinctions-
taller and narrower than the Korakou jar. Its maxi-
mum diameter is at a proportionally lower level. Cups
with high vertical handles in Knobbed Ware have also
been found at Troy,' but these taper more towards the
rim than the Korakou cup and their handles are
turned outwards at a more oblique angle. The struc-
ture of these vessels differs from that of the Korakou
vessels. No parallel to the two-handled jar is pub-
lished from Troy. The applied plastic decoration of
one of the Korakou vessels consists of smooth applied
bands. No parallels to these smooth bands are pub-
lished from Troy. Rope patterns consisting of oblique
cuts in a ridge, such as appears in another Korakou
vessel (the wide-mouthed jar), occur at Troy, but the
cuts are broader and more widely spaced. Rope pat-
terns formed by rounded or oval impressions are far
more common there. Decoration consisting of incisions
in the surface is frequent in Trojan Knobbed Ware
and so are of course the knobs after which this cate-
gory is named.
Beside the above points it may also be observed that
the Korakou material on which Rutter bases his the-
ory is not homogeneous. The fabric, decoration and
vessel types vary within this group of sixteen vases and
fragments. Rutter has divided the material into five
groups. Considering the limited number of objects,
this seems somewhat hazardous. Comparative material
from other Mycenaean sites is to a great extent miss-
ing. Coarse pottery-in so far as it is not discarded-
is seldom published from early excavations.
From recent excavations, where coarse pottery pre-
sumably has been more carefully studied, signs of a
possible increase of handmade and burnished ware in
Myc. IIIC have been reported. To judge from the
Korakou material such pottery seems to form a rather
heterogeneous group. Parallels have been sought in
widely different areas. The common features of the
vessels belonging to this group are the quality and
treatment of clay. On the other hand, in the absence
of a systematic study of coarse ware it may be safer
to look upon them as one special group. Rutter has
presented one explanation to its lack of correspon-
dence to standard Mycenaean pottery: it was made by
northern intruders. One may, however, ask if some
internal Mycenaean explanation would not be possible,
especially since hand-made and burnished vases were
made earlier than in Myc. IIIC." A change in the
C. Blegen and M. Rawson, The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in
WesternMesseniaI, part 2 (Princeton 1966) fig. 355, shape 18.
5MP 34, 95, 655-
6 C. Blegen, C. Boulter, J.
Caskey and M. Rawson, Troy IV.
Settlements VIIa, VIIb and VIII, part 2 (Princeton 1958) fig.
267.
7 Ibid. figs. 260-61.
8 See notes 2-3.
1976] ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTES
conditions of pottery production may also be con-
sidered. When the Mycenaean citadels were destroyed,
the workshops with large-scale production, closely con-
nected with the larger centres, could be assumed to
have been supplanted to a considerable extent by
small local workshops with a limited production or
even household production. The production at Berbati,
for instance, ceased at the end of Myc. IIIB. The
influence from the larger centres would have dimin-
ished. The clay for the local workshops may have been
obtained from the neighbourhood and not from the
old clay-beds and a proportionally greater number of
vessels ought to have been made by hand. This may
help to explain the existence of large mineral and other
inclusions in the clay of some of the Korakou ma-
terial. Mica and other inclusions, which makes the
clay harder, is desirable when a vase is built up by
hand instead of thrown on the wheel. Not only coarse
or rather coarse domestic pottery, but also fine Myc.
IIIC pottery is often unslipped.9 Slipping and burnish-
ing serve the same two purposes: first to close the
pores of the clay to make the vessel water-tight and,
secondly, to give it an attractive surface.10The prepa-
ration of a slip takes more time than the preparations
for burnishing. Slipping is thus more suitable for large-
scale production. For a potter who only makes a few
vessels at a time it may seem easier to leave as many
as possible unslipped and to burnish those which must
hold liquid for some time, such as domestic vessels.
These technical conditions rather than actual con-
nexions may explain a similarity to Italian, Rou-
manian, and Bulgarian pottery. Extensive foreign ele-
ments requiring an external explanation cannot be
identified in this Myc. IIIC pottery.
GISELAWALBERC
UNIVERSITY OF UPPSALA
"NON-MYCENAEAN" POTTERY:
A REPLY TO GISELA WALBERG
Of the sixteen vases and sherds from Korakou
which I recently published in this journal, eleven de-
monstrably come from contexts of early LH IIIC date;
none of the remaining five must necessarily belong
to an earlier or later period. Their identification as
"non-Mycenaean" rests in their handmade manufac-
ture and burnished surface treatment and in the fact
that the shapes which they represent combined with
the decoration which they exhibit are decidedly ab-
normal in Mycenaean ceramics. This is not to say that
individual Mycenaean vases were never handmade,
never burnished, never plastically decorated with cor-
dons or grooves, or never painted with a wavy line.
It is rather the particular combination of 'these fea-
tures on a small group of vases occurring within a
9 MP 14.
10 V. Hankey observes in "A Late Bronze Age
Temple at
Amman," Levant 6 (1974) 143, that burnishing is often, but
not exclusively associated with handmade pottery and that
"evidence of burnishing can be seen in a few Mycenaean pots,
This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Sun, 22 Nov 2015 01:50:02 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
187
narrow range of time which makes the Korakou
pieces and a very few comparable vases from other
Mycenaean sites atypical and hence "non-Mycenaean."
To cite instances of the occurrence of no more than
one of these features on any given vase in a series of
truly "Mycenaean" vases which are scattered over a
wide range in both space and time fails, in my opin-
ion, to establish a valid Mycenaean pedigree for the
Korakou vessels.
I have argued that pottery closely similar to the
Korakou handmade and burnished material was
found in Troy VIIb. That the Trojan comparanda are
not identical to the Korakou pieces in terms of their
shape proportions or in the precise outline of the
decorative impressions on their applied cordons is
neither contested nor surprising. What is significant
is the overall resemblance in terms of shapes, decora-
tion, and method of manufacture between the two;
it seems to me undeniable that as a group the Korakou
vases are far more closely related to this Troy VIIb
pottery than to any "Mycenaean" handmade vessels.
Furthermore, both at Korakou and at Troy the respec-
tive groups of comparable handmade and burnished
pottery were considered to have no immediate ante-
cedents in the recognized local wares. It is this last
fact which led me to suggest that the handmade and
burnished pottery from early LH IIIC Korakou was
the product of immigrants rather than of local pot-
ters, since very similar pottery seemed to have been
introduced at Troy in a comparable fashion at about
the same time.
Other interpretations of the Korakou handmade pot-
tery are certainly possible, and Walberg's alternative,
that this pottery is in fact an inferior "Mycenaean"
product to be explained by the collapse of palatial
civilization at the end of LH IIIB, is worthy of con-
sideration. However, it is clear from Korakou and vir-
tually every other site at which LH IIIC occupation is
attested that fine painted pottery, as well as coarse
cooking wares, continued to be produced in quantity
in standard "Mycenaean" fabrics, technique, shapes,
and decoration during the LH IIIC period; although
pottery may possibly now have been made by non-
specialists at the household level, the claim cannot be
made that standard Mycenaean wares were not avail-
able. What is peculiar about the Korakou handmade
and burnished pottery is that it does not appear to rep-
resent the poor attempts by unskilled potters to pro-
duce a familiar "Mycenaean" range of shapes and
decoration, but rather is indicative of a taste for shapes
and decorative treatments with no immediate local
ancestry. One could maintain that these unusual new
shapes and approaches to decoration represent the sur-
facing of a popular tradition in ceramics buried since
late Middle Helladic times under the Minoan forms
favored by those arbiters of taste who had controlled
notably in jugs and alabastra of the Myc. I and II periods, but
it is a slow process and was not, as far as I know, used in the
mass production of small closed shapes of Myc. III." It may
be noted that slipping and burnishing often occur on the
same pot.