Late Minoan Vases and Bronzes in Oxford

Abstract

The Ashmolean Museum, with the help of the Sir Arthur Evans Fund, has recently acquired three sets of material, vases and bronzes, said to have been found in Crete. Such a provenance is confirmed by the nature of the objects themselves. The three sets were acquired at different times on the London market, but the first (sixteen painted vases) and the second (eleven bronze weapons and tools) were said to have come from one and the same site, reputed to be somewhere in the region of Siteia. The remaining set of objects (eleven painted vases) has no more precise provenance than ‘Crete’.The material appears all to be of Late Minoan III date; the twenty-seven painted vases include examples of Late Minoan IIIA, IIIB, and IIIC date, and there is probably a similar chronological spread among the bronzes. As comparatively little material of the same categories has been published in detail, the opportunity is taken to illustrate and describe these Oxford acquisitions as a contribution to Late Minoan III studies.