The Minoan civilization produced a wide variety of richly decorated Minoan pottery. Its sequence of maturing artistic styles reveals something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists in assigning relative dates to the strata of their sites. Pots that contained oils and ointments, exported from 18th century BC Crete, have been found at sites through the Aegean islands and mainland Greece, in Cyprus, along coastal Syria and in Egypt, showing the wide trading contacts of the Minoans.
The pottery includes vases, figurines, models of buildings, and burial urns called larnakes. Several pottery shapes, especially the rhyton cup, were also produced in soft stones such as steatite, but there was almost no overlap with metal vessels. The finest achievements came in the Middle Minoan period, with the palace pottery called Kamares ware, and the Late Minoan all-over patterned "Marine Style" and "Floral Style". These were widely exported around the Aegean civilizations and sometimes beyond, and are the high points of the Minoan pottery tradition.
The most comprehensive collection is in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum on Crete.
Traditional chronology
+Minoan chronology 3500–2900 BCThis chronology of Minoan Crete is the one used by Andonis Vasilakis in his book on Minoan Crete, published by Adam Editions in 2000, but other chronologies will vary, sometimes quite considerably (EM periods especially). Sets of different dates from other authors are set out at Minoan chronology EMI Prepalatial 2900–2300 BC EMII 2300–2100 BC EMIII 2100–1900 BC MMIA 1900–1800 BC MMIB Protopalatial(Old Palace Period) 1800–1750 BC MMIIA 1750-1700 BC MMIIB Neopalatial(New Palace Period) 1700–1650 BC MMIIIA 1650–1600 BC MMIIIB 1600–1500 BC LMIA 1500–1450 BC LMIB Postpalatial (at Knossos; Final Palace Period) 1450–1400 BC LMII 1400–1350 BC LMIIIA 1350–1100 BC LMIIIB
The traditional chronology for dating Minoan civilization was developed by Sir Arthur Evans in the early years of the 20th century AD. His terminology and the one proposed by Nikolaos Platon are still generally in use and appear in this article. For more details, see the Minoan chronology.
Evans classified fine pottery by the changes in its forms and styles of decoration. Platon concentrated on the episodic history of the Palace of Knossos. A new method, fabric analysis, involves geologic analysis of coarse and mainly non-decorated sherds as though they were rocks. The resulting classifications are based on composition of the sherds.Fabric Research and Analysis, The Spakia Survey: Internet Edition.
Production and techniques Little is known about the way the pottery was produced, but it was probably in small artisanal workshops, often clustered in settlements near good sources of clay for potting. For many, potting may well have been a seasonal activity, combined with farming, although the volume and sophistication of later wares suggests full-time specialists, and two classes of workshop, one catering to the palaces.Traunmueller, 341-350 There is some evidence that women were also potters. Archaeologists seeking to understand the conditions of production have drawn tentative comparisons with aspects of both modern Cretan rural artisans and the better-documented Egyptian and Mesopotamian Bronze Age industries.Traunmueller, 341-350 In Linear B the word for potter is "ke-ra-me-u".Traunmueller, 348
Technically, slips were widely used, with a variety of effects well understood. The potter's wheel appears to have been available from the MM IB, but other "handmade" methods of forming the body remained in use, and were needed for objects with sculptural shapes.Oxford, 409 Ceramic glazes were not used, and none of the wares were fired to very high temperatures, remaining earthenware or terracotta. All of these characteristics remain true of later Greek pottery throughout its great period. The finest wares often have very thin-walled bodies. The excavation of an abandoned LM kiln at Kommos (the port of Phaistos), complete with its "wasters" (malformed pots), is developing understanding of the details of production.A LM IA Ceramic Kiln in South-Central Crete, Joseph W. Shaw et al., Hesperia Supplement 30, 2001. The styles of pottery show considerable regional variation within Crete in many periods.Oxford, Chapter 30 summarizes these.
Early Minoan Early Minoan pottery is broadly characterized by a large number of local wares with frequent Cycladic parallels or imports, suggesting a population of checkerboard ethnicity deriving from various locations in the eastern Aegean and beyond.
FN, EM I Early Minoan pottery, to some extent, continued, and possibly evolved from, the local Final NeolithicThis term dating from the late 20th century means the very last, transitional phase of the Neolithic, in which stone tools were in use along with elements of the succeeding metal age. The terms, "Chalcolithic", "Copper Age" and "Sub-Neolithic", clearly fall into this category. They are used in this general sense in the archaeology of Europe. However, the Final Neolithic also tends to refer to specific cultures. With reference to the Aegean, it means Late Neolithic Ib - II , during which painted ware was replaced by coarse ware in the Cyclades; on Crete, it means the Neolithic before EM I, which features coarse wares. In a general sense, all EM might have been Final Neolithic, as bronze materials do not start until the MM period. It is not, however, used in that sense with reference to Crete. (FN) without a severe break. Many suggest that Minoan civilization evolved in-situ and was not imported from the East. Its other main feature is its variety from site to site, which is suggestive of localism of Early Minoan social traditions.
Studies of the relationship between EM I and FN have been conducted mainly in East Crete. There the Final Neolithic has affinities to the Cyclades, while both FN and EM I settlements are contemporaneous, with EM I gradually replacing FN. Of the three possibilities, no immigration, total replacement of natives by immigrants, immigrants settling among natives, HutchinsonHutchinson, Chapter 6 takes a compromise view: "The Neolithic Period in Crete did not end in a catastrophe; its culture developed into that of the Bronze Age under pressure from infiltration of relatively small bands of immigrants from the south and east, where copper and bronze had long been in use."
Pyrgos Ware
EM I types include Pyrgos Ware,Pyrgos I-IV, EM I through LM I, has been defined. also called "Burnished Ware". The major form was the "chalice", or Arkalochori Chalice, in which a cup combined with a funnel-shaped stand could be set on a hard surface without spilling. As the Pyrgos site was a rock shelter used as an ossuary, some hypothesize ceremonial usage]. This type of pottery was black, grey or brown, and burnished, with some sort of incised linear pattern. It may have imitated wood.
Tripod Cooking Pots The EM II era in the Minoan civilization saw the start of tripod cooking pots at places like Knossos, with that came a brief adoption of horned stands in cooking pot production, primarily used during the EM II period. These features have not been identified elsewhere beyond Knossos and surrounding regions. Cups had reduced in size for it to be used by one person. The vast majority of these Minoan tripod cooking pots had deep featured bodies, usually being supported with three legs with either horizontal handles or vertical handles with a small opening on the top. They appear to be the most common way to cook. These cooking tripods were made from red firing clay with rock fragments to create the coarse touch that these pots had. The usage of animal goods can be identified in the tripod cooking pots, and the usage of plant byproducts can also be identified. The mixture of both can be found in the tripod cooking pots, but with plant byproducts being more evident than animal byproducts in some instances. There appears to be also found residue of beeswax in the tripod cooking pots. Most of these discoveries were found at Sissi. What that beeswax was used for is uncertain. This appears to potentially lead to the possibility of subtypes of these cooking pots. There is evidence that these pots started to show up during the EMI in the Hagia Photia; its appearance in the Hagia Photia during the second EMII period is questionable. Most of these discoveries were located in the Northern and Northeastern sections of the island.
Incised Ware Another EM I type, Incised Ware, also called Scored Ware, were hand-shaped, round-bottomed, dark-burnished jugs (Example) and bulbous cups and jars ("pyxes"). Favored decor was incised line patterns, vertical, horizontal or herring-bone. These pots are from the north and northeast of Crete and appear to be modeled after the Kampos Phase of the Grotta-Pelos early Cycladic I culture. Some have suggested imports or immigrations. See also Hagia Photia.
Agyios Onouphrios, Lebena
The painted parallel-line decoration of Agios Onouphrios Ware was drawn with an iron-red clay slip that would fire red under oxidizing conditions in a clean kiln but under the reducing conditions of a smoky fire turn darker, without much control over color, which could range from red to brown. A dark-on-light painted pattern was then applied.Examples 1, Examples 2. From this beginning, Minoan potters already concentrated on the linear forms of designs, perfecting coherent designs and voids that would ideally suit the shape of the ware. Shapes were jugs, two-handled cups and bowls. The ware came from north and south central Crete, as did Lebena Ware of the same general types but decorated by painting white patterns over a solid red painted background (Example). The latter came from EM I tombs.
Koumasa and Fine Gray Ware In EM IIA, the geometric slip-painted designs of Koumasa Ware seem to have developed from the wares of Aghios Onouphrios. The designs are in red or black on a light background. Forms are cups, bowls, jugs and teapots (Example: "Goddess of Myrtos"). Also from EM IIA are the cylindrical and spherical pyxides called Fine Gray Ware or just Gray Ware, featuring a polished surface with incised diagonals, dots, rings and semicircles.
Vasiliki Ware The EM IIA and IIB Vasiliki Ware, named for the Minoan site in eastern Crete, has mottled glaze effects, early experiments with controlling color, but the elongated spouts drawn from the body and ending in semicircular spouts show the beginnings of the tradition of Minoan elegance (Examples 1, Examples 2). The mottling was produced by uneven firing of the slip-covered pot, with the hottest areas turning dark. Considering that the mottling was controlled into a pattern, touching with hot coals was probably used to produce it. The effect was paralleled in cups made of mottled stone.
EM III Pottery In the latest brief transition (EM III), wares in eastern Crete begin to be covered in dark slip with light slip-painted decor of lines and spirals; the first checkered motifs appear; the first petallike loops and leafy bands appear, at Gournia (Walberg 1986). Rosettes appear and spiral links sometimes joined into bands. These motifs are similar to those found on seals. In north central Crete, where Knossos was to emerge, there is little similarity: dark on light linear banding prevails; footed goblets make their appearance (Example).
Middle Minoan
The rise of the Minoan palaces at Knossos and Phaistos and their new type of urbanized, centralized society with redistribution centers required more storage vessels and ones more specifically suited to a range of functions. In palace workshops, standardization suggests more supervised operations and the rise of elite wares, emphasizing refinements and novelty, so that palace and provincial pottery become differentiated.