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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2013
The tholos tomb on the Kephala ridge near Knossos, which R. W. Hutchinson excavated in December 1938, contained in the fill several deposits of skeletal remains and of L.M. IIIC pottery. These belong to a period long after that of the construction and original use of the tomb, which Hutchinson dates to L.M. IA. In his report he describes the bone deposits and mentions and illustrates some of the pots. V. Desborough, who was one of Hutchinson's assistants in the excavation, has discussed briefly more of the L.M. IIIC pottery, but it has never been published in full. So, when Vronwy Hankey, Hutchinson's other assistant, recently produced her fieldnotes and Hutchinson's catalogue of the whole or nearly whole pots, M. Popham suggested that, with the excavator's permission, I should publish the pots listed in the catalogue—the publication of more L.M. IIIB and C pottery being an urgent need in Minoan archaeology.
The original catalogue records seventeen pots, of which two are missing (5, a conical cup, and 7, a deep bowl); to these has been added 18, a coarse-ware bowl, restored but not hitherto catalogued. From the catalogue and from Vronwy Hankey's notes it has been possible to place most of the pots approximately in their find-spots and relate some with the various secondary burials in the tomb. The excavation report gives five L.M. IIIC deposits inside the chamber: three bone deposits at less than a metre's depth below the datum, with which no pots can be associated, although the stirrup-jar 1, which is typologically late, was found just below this level; lower still were the plain deep bowl 4 and the krateriskos 14, perhaps to be associated with the fourth deposit of two skulls close together in the area of shaft grave δ between 1·0 and 1·70 m. below the datum. At about the same depth the deep bowl 11 was found near the entrance.
1 The excavation is published in BSA li (1956) 74–80, pls. 9–12 (hereafter ‘Hutchinson’): see especially pp. 74 and 78, pl. 10 c, d. d'A. Desborough, V. R.'s discussion is in The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors (hereafter LMS) (1964) 179Google Scholar, which I have naturally drawn on. Some pots have been cited by Popham, , in BSA lx (1965) 299, 336, 338.Google Scholar
I am very grateful to R. W. Hutchinson for permission to publish these pots and to use his catalogue; to Mrs. Vronwy Hankey who lent me her notes, the pot catalogue, and Desborough's photographs; to Desborough for use of his photographs; to M. R. Popham for suggesting and reading the work and for much helpful advice; to J. N. Coldstream for taking photographs; and to Dr. St. Alexiou for considerate hospitality when I was studying the pottery during a cold spell at the Heraklion Museum. I would also like to thank the Managing Committee of the British School at Amens whose award of the Macmillan Studentship enabled me to do this work.
Fig. 1 is based on Hutchinson 75, fig. 1. Dimensions are given in metres.
Special abbreviations:
Athens = Broneer, , ‘A Mycenaean Fountain on the Athenian Acropolis’, Hesperia viii (1939) 317–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karphi = Seiradaki, , ‘Pottery from Karphi’, BSA lv (1960) 1–37.Google Scholar
Kastri = Sackett, and Popham, , ‘Excavations at Palaikastro VI’, BSA lx (1965) 278–99.Google Scholar
2 Hutchinson 78.
3 Cf. Kastri 283, 293 (KP 1).
4 LMS 179.
5 e.g. Ioannis, A. T. 5 (BSA lv (1960) 133, pl. 34. V. 2).Google Scholar Two from the Spring Chamber (PM ii. 136, fig. 69. B, O) have a similar shape to ours, but a decoration of vertical dashes in a wide panel between bands; as does one from Karphi, (Karphi 21, fig. 14. 9).Google Scholar
6 MP 31, fig. 6, 604, citing Delphi, , Temenos T. (F. de D. v. 11, fig. 35)Google Scholar, Thebes, , Kolonaki T 10 (ADelt iii (1917) 147, fig. 109 b)Google Scholar, and Tragana, , Tholos T. (AE (1914) 104, fig. 6. 1).Google Scholar
7 Cf. BSA lx (1965) 330, 338.
8 Cf. ibid. 320, and references to Athens 391 f., Karphi 16, Kastri 284.
9 Karphi 13, fig. 8. 2, pl. 5 b.
10 Karphi 7 ff., fig. 4, Kastri 285, 297, fig. 17. The changes in the shape of the section of tripod cooking-pot legs are described in BSA lix (1964) 52 f., fig. 2A; but it should be noted that study of Early Minoan pottery from recent excavations at Knossos has shown that round sections are found on the earliest E.M. II tripod cooking-pot legs, as well as on the latest of L.M. III.