Egyptian Bronze Jugs from Crete and Lefkandi

Journal of Hellenic Studies

Volumn 118, Issue , 1998, Pages 172-177

  Carter, Jane B ^a  

^a TULANE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84974626685     PISSN: 00754269     EISSN: 20414099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/632238     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. J. Boardman, The Greeks Overseas3 (London 1980) 113. I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful comments.
2. F. Halbherr, ‘Scavi e trovamenti nell'antro di Zeus’, Museo Italiano di antichità classica 2 (1888) 725 and Atlante pl. 12, 9.
3. Inv. no. 18221. Unless this handle belonged to one of die five jugs in the Syllogos collection, Halbherr does not mention the handle in his report.
4. H. Matthäus, ‘Crete and the Near East during the ninth and eighth Centuries BC-new investigations on the finds from the Idaean Cave of Zeus’, paper delivered at the Colloquium on Post-Minoan Crete, Institute of Archaeology, London, Nov. 10–11, 1995.
5. J.K. Brock, Fortetsa, BSA suppl. 2 (Cambridge 1957) 136, 200–1, nos. 1571–2, pl. 113. The dates are those given by Brock.
6. S. Marinatos, “ Av$ ‘$’, Praktiká (1933) 99 ($), 99–100 and figs. 4–5 (faience objects).
7. M.R. Popham, L.H. Sackett, and P. Themelis, Lefkandi I, BSA suppl. 11 (1980) 188–9, 249–50
8. L.H. Sackett and M.R. Popham, ‘Lefkandi: a Euboean town of the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (2100–700 bc)’, Archaeology 25.1 (1972) 18.
9. M.R. Popham, E. Touloupa, and L.H. Sackett, ‘Further excavation of the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi, 1981’, BSA 77 (1982) 219 (T 39.31), 239, fig. 8, pl. 33e.
10. W. Culican, ‘Phoenician metalwork and Egyptian tradition’, Revista de la Universidad Complutense 25 (1976) 89.
11. In the same way, Egyptian decorative schemes of the New Kingdom provided models for the Egyptian lotiform relief chalices made in Dynasty XXI (c. 1075–1944)
12. makers of bronze bowls in eighth and seventh century Cyprus then adopted these decorative schemes. See G. Markoe, Phoenician Bronze and Silver Bowls from Cyprus and the Mediterranean (U. Cal. Publ. in Classical Studies 26, 1985) 30–33.
13. Culican (n.9) 85 and fig. 6.
14. See: J.L. Myers, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection (1914) no. 4701
15. G.M.A. Richter, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes (New York 1915) 241, no. 690, and ill. on 243; Myers gives a date of 1300–1200 BC, and Richter gives Dynasties XVIII-XIX.
16. The references given by Culican (n.9) nn. 14–16 are full of inaccuracies.
17. He cites G. Brunton, Mostagedda and the Tasian Culture (London 1937)
18. when he actually refers to G. Brunton, Matmar (London 1948) 67–8, no. 1017, pi. XLIX, 1
19. this error is duplicated from his earlier article, ‘Quelques apercus sur les ateliers phéniciens’, Syria 45 (1968) 280 n. 1.
20. the bottom of the handle is soldered to the body of the vase: D. Dunham, The Royal Cemeteries of Kush. Volume II. Nuri (Boston 1955) 81, #18–3–321, fig. 55, pis. XXXIV D, LXXXIX A (now Boston Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 20.341).
21. The pages and illustration cited by Culican for a jug from the tomb of ‘queen Amtalqa’ at Nuri do not mention or illustrate such a jug; indeed, Amtalqa was a king, not a queen. There is no other vessel with a cut-out or incised lotus on its handle in the publication of the cemetery at Nuri. As for ‘the example found by Layard at Nimrud’, this is a handle only, bronze with cut-out lotus decoration, which probably belonged to a wide shallow bowl rather than to a jug: A.H. Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (New York 1853) 181.
22. The shape of this handle corresponds to the handles of wide, shallow bowls such as A. Radwan, Die Kupfer- und Bronzegefässe Ägyptens, Prähistorische Bronzefunde ii.2 (Munich 1983) nos. 335–336.
23. G. Falsone, ‘Phoenicia as a bronzeworking centre in the Iron Age’, in J. Curtis (ed.), Bronzeworking Centres of Western Asia c. 1000–539 (London 1988) 234.
24. Catling in Popham, Sackett, and Themelis 1980 (n.7) 250.
25. Culican uses the Cincinnati wine service (Fig. 5) as an example of an Egyptian Dynasty XVIII jug with two real rivets and a false rivet in between: Culican (n.9) 86 and fig. 13.
26. Brock (n.5) 136, nos. 1574–1579, pl. 112.
27. Athens, National Museum #11790/2. In four of the hemispherical bowls from Fortetsa Tomb P, a small hole is visible near the rim. Brock explains that a loop handle was probably attached to these bowls by means of a single rivet. The hemispherical bowl in the Athens Museum also has a small hole near the rim.
28. T. Dothan, Deir el-Balah, Qedem x (Jerusalem 1979), Tomb 118, 46–91, figs 148–54
29. L. Gershuny, Bronze Vessels from Israel and Jordan, Prähistorische Bronzefunde ii.6 (1985) 19, no. 127, pl. 12.
30. For the soldered handle and the shape of this jug, compare a Dynasty XIX bronze jug with a lotus engraved on the handle from Dendereh: Radwan (n.12) 135, no. 384, pL. 68.
31. P. Åström et al., Halo Sultan Tekke 8 (Goteborg 1983) 169–87: Tomb 23, N 1220 (platter), N 1221 (bowl), and N 1222 (jug). The tomb is dated to the transition between Late Cypriote IIIA1 and IIIA2, c. 1175 BC.
32. See also H. Matthäus, Metall-gefässe und Gefässuntersätze der Bronzezeit, der geometrischen und archäischen Periode auf Cypern, Prähistorische Bronzefunde ii.8 (Munich 1985) 26, 58–9, 80 (#151, bowl), 194–5 (#469, platter), 234–6 (#532, jug).
33. Eight wine services have been coveniently assembled by Gershuny (n.17) 46–47, pis. 17–18, A-H (note that the caption on pi. 17 should identify sets A and B as Megiddo, set C as Beth Shan, and set D as Tell es Sa'idiyeh). The dates given below (except no. 5) are from Gershuny. Another wine service (no. 5 below) was recently excavated at Tell es Sa'idiyeh.
34. Tell el-Ajjul, Tomb 419 (the Governor's Tomb), 14th century. Gershuny 24, nos. 77 (almost hemispherical bowl), 117 (strainer), and 119 (situla), pL. 18 F.
35. Beth Shan, Tomb 90, 13th century. Gershuny 26–7, nos. 16 (hemispherical bowl), 114 (strainer), and 130 (jug), Pl. 17 C.
36. Deir el-Balah, Tomb 114, 13th century. Gershuny 29–30, nos. 72 (shallow bowl), 116 (strainer), and 122 (situla), pl. 18 E.
37. The use of these vessels was first identified by Petrie, in connection with his excavation of the Governor's Tomb at Tell el-Ajjul (n.19 above, no.1).
38. For discussions of wine services, see: J.B. Pritchard, ‘New evidence of the role of the Sea Peoples in Canaan at the beginning of the Iron Age’, in W. Ward (ed.), The Role of the Phoenicians in the Interaction of Mediterranean Civilizations (Beirut 1968) 99–112
39. O. Negbi, ‘The continuity of the Canaanite bronzework of the Late Bronze Age into the Early Iron Age’, Tel Aviv 1 (1974) 159–72
40. P.R.S. Moorey, ‘Metal wine-sets in the ancient Near East’, Iranica Antiqua 15 (1980) 181–97
41. Gershuny (n.17) 46–47
42. Matthaus (n.18) 59.
43. For the Egyptian presence in Palestine in the Ramesside period: I. Singer, ‘Egyptians, Canaanites, and Philistines in the period of the emergence of Israel’, in I. Finkelstein and N. Na'aman (eds.), From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel (Jerusalem 1994) 282–338
44. F.W. James and P.E. McGovern, The Late Bronze Egyptian Garrison at Beth Shan: A Study of Levels VII and VIII, U. of Penn. University Museum Monograph 85 (1993)
45. R. Gonen, ‘The Late Bronze Age’, in A. Ben-Tor (ed.), The Archaeology of Ancient Israel (New Haven & London 1992) 217, 221
46. I. Singer, ‘Merneptah's campaign to Canaan and the Egyptian occupation of the southern coastal plain of Palestine in the Ramesside period’, BASOR 269 (1988) 1–10
47. E.D. Oren, ‘“Governors’ residences” in Canaan under the New Kingdom: a case study of Egyptian administration’, Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 14.2 (1985) 37–56
48. R. Gonen, ‘Urban Canaan in the Late Bronze period’, BASOR 253 (1984) 61–73
49. J.M. Weinstein, ‘The Egyptian empire in Palestine: a reassessment’, BASOR ccxli (1981) 1–28.
50. Culican (n.9) 86, 89.
51. Catling in Popham, Sackett, and Themelis 1980 (n.7) 250.
52. Radwan (n.12) 133–7.
53. Catling in Popham, Sackett, and Themelis 1980 (n.7) 249.
54. Such an embassy in the fourteenth century would require that the jug from Toumba Tomb 39 could be dated in Dynasty XVIII; otherwise the Egyptian embassy might have been Ramesside, or the the jug in Tomb 39 came later. An official Egyptian embassy from Amenhotep III to cities in Crete and mainland Greece, including Mycenae, in the first half of the fourteenth century BC has been proposed based on the list of apparent Aegean toponyms found in the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III at Kom el-Hetan and the six or more objects from Mycenae inscribed with the name of Amenhotep III or Queen Tiyi: E. H. Cline, “Amenhotep III and the Aegean: A Reassessment of Egypto-Aegean Relations in the 14th Century”, Orientalia 56 (1987) 1–36
55. Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: International trade and the Late Bronze Age Aegean, BAR International Series 591 (Oxford 1994) 39–42.
56. See the discussion of this and other pedigreed objects from Toumba by CM. Antonaccio, “Lefkandi and Homer,” in ø. Andersen and M. Dickie (eds.), Homer's World (Bergen 1995) 5–27.
57. The case may be similar with the bronze vessel stands of a type made on Cyprus in the late thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC that have been found in contexts as late as the eighth century BC at Athens, Knossos, and Thera; see Matthaus (n.18), 305–6, nos. d, f, and i and j, respectively.
58. For the arguments for and against these stands as heirlooms: H.W. Catling, “Workshop and Heirloom: Prehistoric Bronze Stands in the East Mediterranean”, RDAC 1984, 69–91
59. H. Matthaus, “Heirloom or Tradition? Bronze Stands of the Second and First Millennium B.C. in Cyprus, Greece and Italy”, in E.B. French and K. A. Wardle (eds.), Problems in Greek Prehistory (Bristol 1988) 285–300.
60. Sackett thinks that ‘the family using the Toumba graveyard included a number of wealthy traders, who may themselves have penetrated to the Near East as early as the tenth century BC’ (Popham, Touloupa, and Sackett [n. 8] 237).
61. J.W. Shaw, ‘Phoenicians in southern Crete’, AJA 93 (1989) 165–83.