A Canaanite jar with a Cypro-Minoan inscription from Tiryns: TIRY Avas 001

Abstract

Abstract More inscribed Canaanite jars have been found at the palatial centre of Tiryns than at any other site on the Greek mainland. The Cypro-Minoan inscription TIRY Avas 001, on a Canaanite jar handle from Tiryns, was first published in 1988. Since then, however, a second (unpublished) inscribed handle from that jar has been identified, along with the vessel’s rim, base, and enough body sherds to reconstruct the entire vessel. In this article, we present the reconstructed jar and its incised Cypro-Minoan signs, including a detailed account of the varied contexts of each recovered sherd, as well as a macroscopic analysis of the vessel’s fabric and what this says about its place of origin. We then discuss the probable meanings and uses of the jar and of the writing on it, and outline the probable path of the vessel from its creation on the Levantine coast, to its inscription on Cyprus, to its deposition in a final palatial destruction context in the Lower Citadel of Tiryns.