Stone Vases Research Articles

A Stone Vase Maker's Workshop in the Palace at Knossos

In the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos the material preserved from the excavations of Cists 2 to 6 in Magazine XIII consists largely of fragments of unfinished stone vases and waste pieces from the manufacture of stone vases. The material is all gypsum and is what remains of a gypsum vase-maker's workshop. No account of it has previously been given, though one ‘trial piece’ that almost certainly belonged with it was published by Evans because he believed it bore a Linear A inscription (see below). The present article publishes the material and discusses two questions arising from it, namely the additional information the workshop provides in relation to that of other Cretan stone vase workshops, and the relation between the workshop and gypsum stone vases.

Two Palatial Stone Vases from Knossos

At the invitation of Dr. St. Alexiou, Ephor of Antiquities for Crete and Director of Herakleion Museum, two magnificent large stone vases from the original Knossos excavations are published here. The vases (A. Her. Mus. 21; B. Her. Mus. 23) were found in 1900 in the passage adjoining the ‘Room of the Stone Vases’ on the south, and were reported by Evans. They are the vases of which more details about the find-spot have been given by John Boardman. The fact that vases were found in this passage, well above the floor level (Boardman op. cit.), confirms Evans's view that the whole series had fallen from the upper floor, the majority into the basement room north of the passage.Each of these vases is unique but they may be taken as part of a series of large stone vessels in use in the Palace at the time of its destruction. This series includes the giant amphora and the smaller one from the Sculptor's Workshop, the dark maroon limestone basin from the passage north of the Throne Room, and two other large basins from the North-west Insula, a fine reddish limestone amphora, the Throne Room alabastra and various large vessels from the Central Treasury deposit. The two lids have L.M. IB parallels whilst that of the reddish limestone amphora is similar.

Architectural Representations on Steatite Vases

Among the pre-Sargonid finds from several Mesopotamian sites as well ox as from Susa and Mari there are several complete or nearly complete stone vases carved with peculiar and intriguing decoration and numerous fragments of such vases. The material is nearly always a rather soft stone, varying in colour from pale bluish grey to dark brownish green, and is usually identified as steatite. Two shapes are prevalent, a cylindrical cup or vase with a flat base, the height of which is somewhat less than the diameter, and a relatively taller more graceful vase, also with a flat bottom, which is narrower at the mouth than at the base and has slightly incurving walls. We were fortunate in finding a specimen of each type in one room of Sin Temple IX at Khafajah. They are shown in Plates VIa and VII respectively.One motif, perhaps the most common in the decoration of such vases, is obviously a representation of some sort of structure consisting chiefly of wicker-work. Sometimes it occupies the entire surface of the vessel (as in Plate VIa); occasionally it occurs in combination with other designs (as in Plate VII). It is with this motif that we are chiefly concerned here. A ubiquitous element in such representations is a panel formed by triple vertical bands on either side and a triple downcurving band at the top. Inside, at the bottom of each panel, there is what seems to be a screen consisting of a horizontal member with a crosshatched rectangle under it. Above the screen are fairly wide vertical bands which apparently are meant to be represented as being behind the screen. (In the vase shown in Plate VII they actually are carved on a somewhat deeper surface than either the frame or the screen.)

Part I. Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 1953

The British excavations at Mycenae in 1953 were continued with a research grant from the American Philosophical Society assisted by contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, Bollingen Foundation, and the British School at Athens, under whose aegis the excavations were conducted. The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton has provided an ideal base for preparing the material for publication.The excavations began on July 8th, and work ceased on August 24th. On August 25th the bulk of the finds was moved to the Nauplia Museum and stored in the room reserved for the finds from Mycenae. The finds from 1952 are already in this room. We improved its facilities this year by the erection of some wooden shelving. The days from August 26th to August 30th were spent at Nauplia in studying and arranging the finds and in photography. The carved ivories, the tablet and seal impressions have been taken to Athens, but the stone vases were taken to the Nauplia Museum with the pottery.

Egyptian Stone Vases and Flints

Egyptian Stone Vases and Flints

Uruk and Yortan

Much water, both clear and muddy, has flowed under the bridge since 1903 and we can now form some idea of Anatolian cultures in the third millennium B.c. We can recognize a Troadic area in the west, a group of pre-Hittite sites in the centre, a rather shadowy Cilician culture in the south, an equally vague culture in the Van district, and a very important group of sites in the Upper Euphrates valley and its tributary vales, a country populated in historic times by Subaraeans and other less important peoples. One of the most recent contributions to the prehistory of Anatolia is provided by certain passages in Dr. Frankfort's Archaeology and the Sumerian Question, a most valuable and stimulating book; if I criticize one section of it I trust that it will be realized that I differ from him chiefly on certain emphases and stresses, and admire the treatise in general as much as any of his readers. In his general review of Mesopotamia Dr. Frankfort notices certain peculiarities in the culture of the Uruk period for which he can find no prototypes in the preceding al 'Ubaid culture. These peculiarities he proceeds to derive from Anatolia, though he admits that they may have been derived thence indirectly. The more important of these supposedly Anatolian characteristics were the use of a slip, the use of clays of purposely different composition to obtain the red colour and muffled firing to obtain the grey, the vertical piercing of the lugs, and the occurrence of stone vases. The pottery, according to Frankfort, indicates 'migratory movements'. 'Both the grey and the red wares are in reality rooted in the black ware technique which was practised in Anatolia, whereas the Iranian Highlands and the Syrian coastal regions produced two varieties of painted pottery.' Various elements of the Uruk culture, the dress fashions, the practice of writing on clay tablets, use of stamp and cylinder seals, building with mud bricks and adorning the walls with vertical grooves or by the insertion of baked clay cones, were characteristic also of the later Sumerian culture.2 Were the Uruk folk then already Sumerians? This question must be abandoned at present, but we may remark that there are many elements in the Uruk culture, especially the pottery, that can hardly be derived from the preceding al 'Ubaid culture. The plain pottery of Uruk has been found at Tepe Gawra and Nineveh in Assyria, at Kish, Ur, Warka, and Telloh in south Mesopotamia, and in deposits Ic and Id at Susa in Persia.3

Excavations at Ur, 1933–34

DR. C. L. WOOLLEY'S lecture on “The Year's Work at Ur”, given at the Royal Institution on May 11, afforded his audience a more favourable opportunity of appraising the results of this brief season's excavations than has been possible from the summary reports which have appeared in the Press. The elucidation and study of the earlier phases of the occupation of the site have been carried down through pre-flood strata to the bottom of the marsh before man appears on the scene. The history of the ziggurat, dating in its present form from 2300 B.C., of the attendant temples of the First Dynasty (3000 B.C.) and of the antecedent buildings which they replaced, has been brought back to the very beginning of the ‘plano-convex’ period, while beneath have been found still earlier periods of which the later must belong to the ‘Jemdet Nasr’ age. It was not possible at this point in the excavation area to carry the work to its logical conclusion by deeper digging; but Dr. Woolley traced the course of excavations at the south-eastern end of the Temenos area from the modern ground-level right down to virgin soil, through deposits of the age of Nebuchadnezzar, the Kassite age (1400-1000 B.C.), the Sargonid period (2600 B.C.) and through a continuation of the Royal Cemeteries of the fourth millennium. It was at this point, in what was evidently a soldiers' burial ground, that the unique discovery of a female statue deposited as a funerary offering was made. Below this were the archaic written tablets and seal impressions and at a still greater depth the graves, extending over a considerable period of time, which have proved so amazingly rich in stone vases of varied form and material. In the mixed soil in which, as well as in the sandy flood deposit, were found the earlier graves yielding Jemdet Nasr ware, there were abundant sherds of Al'Ubaid ware, thus completing a remarkable record which covers the complete range of Mesopotamian history from the middle of the first millennium B.C. to man's earliest occupation of the site, a period of not less than three millennia, possibly more.

Excavations at Ur, 1929-30

The eighth season of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania started at Ur on 1st November 1929, and ended on 19th March 1930. The staff consisted of my wife, who as usual was responsible for the type-drawings of objects, the planning of the cemetery, and for a share in the field-work; Mr. M. E. L. Mallowan, general archaeological assistant; the Rev.E. Burrows, S.J., epigraphist; and Mr. A. S. Whitburn, architect. Hamoudi was, as always, head foreman, with his sons, Yahia, Ibrahim, and Alawi acting under him; owing to the fact that work was always going on in at least two spots fairly far apart, greater responsibility than usual was thrown on the younger foremen, who answered admirably to the demands on them; Yahia combined this work with that of staff photographer. The number of men employed varied slightly at different times, but was always over 200 and for most of the season kept at about 240, anumber well in excess of the average of past seasons; the amount of work done wascorrespondingly great. I have to thank the Royal Air Force in Iraq for help of many sorts and not least for an air photograph of the site (pl. XXVIII) taken at the close of the season and of much value for purposes of comparison with earlier photographs; Lt.-Colonel Tainsh, Director of the Iraq Railways, for facilities enabling me to undertake a short experimental dig at Meraijib, a prehistoric site some ten miles south of Ur; and the Director of Antiquities, Iraq, for his help in this Meraijib work and to the Expedition in general. I must also acknowledge my indebtedness to the staff of the British Museum Laboratory, where the work of restoring and cleaning was as usual carried out, and in particular to Mr. E. C. Padgham for his success with the silver objects; Mr. Evan Watkin of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities undertook the mending of the stone vases, and for the mending of the pottery the services of Mrs. F. W. Bard were secured.

Plain Stone Vases from Bismya

Previous articleNext article FreePlain Stone Vases from BismyaEdgar James BanksEdgar James Banks Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 22, Number 1Oct., 1905 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/369554 Views: 3 Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures (1895-1941), which is continued by the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1942-present). Copyright 1904 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Susanna Cereda, Licia Romano PEERING INTO THE DUSTY CORNERS: MICRO-DEBRIS ANALYSIS AND USE OF SPACE AT THE SITE OF ABU TBEIRAH (NASIRIYAH, IRAQ), Iraq 80 (Sep 2018): 79–111.https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2018.7