The Pre-Mycenaean Pottery of the Mainland

Abstract

Although as long ago as 1876 Schliemann's excavations at Mycenae revealed to us the prehistoric civilisation of the Peloponnese, it is only comparatively recently that its pre-Mycenaean culture has become known. For Crete the epoch-making excavations of Sir Arthur Evans have made clear to us the long pottery sequence which illustrates the development of prehistoric civilisation in that island from the end of neolithic times, through the great age of the palace of Knossos, to its decline and fall in the Third Late Minoan period. For the Cyclades the pottery sequence from Phylakopi, with other finds, provides us with a series parallel to the Cretan; and for Thessaly, too, a provisional series has been established. But for the history of civilisation in the Peloponnese and East-Central Greece during the long prehistoric age the only evidence we had was that from Mycenae, Tiryns, and one or two other small sites, all of which illustrate the last phases only.