Mycenaean pottery

As Mycenaean ceramic vases or fragments ( shards ) are referred to by those who are painted in the style typical of the vase painting of the Greek mainland between 1600 BC and 1050 BC (see Mycenaean culture ) is. As elements mainly plant, animal and geometric motifs of varying type and variation, in the late phase are also increasingly facing human figures.

Evolution of style

The oldest specimens of Mycenaean pottery have been found in Laconia and the Argolid. This earliest phase begins the LH I period and covers the period from about 1600/1550 BC to 1500 BC The decorations and most of vessel forms are very strongly influenced by the simultaneous Minoan pottery of Crete. Compared to this, however, the color of the clay comes clearly into yellowish, as in the Middle Helladic Minyschen ceramics. Thus, the pottery products manufactured on the mainland can be clearly distinguished from Cretan imports. Compared to the preceding minyschen and the so-called Matt Painted ceramic, which persists in many regions of Greece, is the Mycenaean pottery represents a breakthrough are a significant Popular how. Contemporaneous in the Minoan pottery, plants and marine animal motifs

In the period SH II (ca. 1500-1400 BC) first stops at the very strong Minoan influence in decorating. Mycenaean pottery is now spreading ever further north and inland. More vessel shapes decorated in Mycenaean style, starting with chalices, a mainland Greek vessel form, now also with Floralverzierungen Mycenaean / Minoan species occurs (so-called " Ephyrische chalices "). At the same time Minyan style is ever displaced. From about the mid-15th century BC (SH II B), about the same time as the submission of Crete, the Mycenaean pottery solves stylistically increasingly of the Minoan goods. Once relatively realistic representations of flowers, vines and marine animals such as especially octopuses are now more and more abstract. Mycenaean pottery encountered now in the Cretan Knossos and spreads out on the Aegean islands.

In the phase LH III A (ca. 1400-1300 BC) Mycenaean pottery as a commodity distributed over large parts of the Mediterranean. At the same time a very strong unification of the style is clear: regional differences disappear, the production site of a vessel can therefore often be determined by Tonanalysen. The kylix is popular over by HH IIIA and is dominant in open vessel forms. Even if the " palace style " also keeps long during the following phase LH III B - (c. 1300 1190 BC). It was only during the second half of the 13th century slowly formed out local variations.

After the destruction and upheaval shortly after 1200 BC ( the transition from LH III B to LH III C), pull the Greek mainland affected primarily, and the associated collapse of the Mycenaean palace economy of style split in the period LH III C (ca. 1190-1050 BC) even more significantly into local variants. The early phase generally let a strong decline in quality clearly seen that painting is, for example, are often not as accurate as in earlier times running. A certain late flowering then adjusts from about the mid-12th century. Figural representations that are also already in LH III B take, at times significantly, eg car drivers, Krieger ( eg on the Kriegervase from Mycenae ), and even ships, including rowers. In the late phase of this period uses a renewed gradual decline. Although the SH phase III C characterize many local styles, but there are connected regions that used fairly similar ceramics. Such koine formed, for example, the Ionian Islands to the opposite landscapes Elis, Acarnania and parts of Achaia. Another koine was identified by Penelope A. Mountjoy on the eastern Aegean islands of Rhodes up to Lesbos, including some places on the mainland of Asia Minor.