Tradition and innovation in pottery forming technology: Wheel-throwing at middle minoan knossos

The Annual of the British School at Athens

Volumn 94, Issue , 1999, Pages 101-129

  Knappett, Carl ^a  

^a CHRIST S COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85009569509     PISSN: 00682454     EISSN: 20452403     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0068245400000538     Document Type: Article

References (142)

1. V. Roux and D. Corbetta, The Potter's Wheel: Craft Specialisation and Technical Competence (Delhi, 1990).
2. e.g. A. C. Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilization: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the 3rd Millennium BC (London, 1972); L. V. Watrous, ‘The role of the Near East in the rise of the Cretan palaces’, in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces (Stockholm, 1987), 65-70.
3. B. Pfaffenberger, ‘Social anthropology of technology’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 21 (1992), 491-516 10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002423.
4. J. A. MacGillivray, Knossos: Pottery Groups of the Old Palace Period (BSA Studies, 5: London, 1998).
5. In this way he repeats the comments of G. M. Foster, ‘The Coyotepec Molde and some associated problems of the potter's wheel’. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 15 (1959), 53-63 (= 1959a): id., ‘The potter's wheel: an analysis of and artifact in invention’, Knossos: Pottery Groups of the Old Palace Period. 99-119 (= 1959b).
6. P. P. Betancourt, ‘The Middle Minoan pottery of Southern Crete and the question of a Middle Minoan Thalassocracy’. in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds). The Minoan, Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality Stockholm, 1984), 89-92 : id., Kommos, ii. The final Neolithic Through Middle Minoan III Pottery, Princeton, 1990.
7. J. D. S. Pcndlebury, The Archaeology of Crete: An Introduction (London, 1939): V G. Childe, ‘Rotary motion’, in C. Singer, E. J. Holmyard, and A. R. Hall (eds). History of Technology, i (London, 1954), 187 : R. Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art (London, 1967); A. D. Lacy, Greek Pottery in the Bronze Age (London, 1967).
8. H. Goldman, Excavations at Gözlü Kule, Tarsus, ii (Princeton, 1956), 131.
9. C. Blegen, Troy, i (1950), 205.
10. D. Arnold and J. Bourriau (eds), An Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Pottery (Mainz, 1993).
11. J. B. Rutter, ‘Fine gray-burnished pottery of the Early Helladic III period: the ancestry of Gray Minyan’. Hesp. 52 (1983), 327-55. O. T. P. K. Dickinson, The Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge, 1994).
12. J. B. Rutter and C. Zerner, ‘Early Hellado-Minoan contacts’, in Hägg and Marinates in. 8). 75-83.
13. P. M. Warren, ‘An Early Bronze Age potter's workshop in Crete’, Antiquity, 43 (1969), 224-7.
14. Recent work in the Near East suggests that the adoption there of wheel-throwing involved a very gradual evolution of concept, developed first through a stage of wheel-shaping, cf. V. Roux and M.-A. Courty, ‘Identification of wheel throwing on the basis of ceramic surface features and microfabrics’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 22 (1995), 17-50 10.1016/S0305-4403(95)80161-8.
15. P. M. Day, D. E. Wilson, and E. Kiriatzi, ‘Reassessing specialisation in Prepalatial Cretan ceramic production’, in P. Betancourt and R. Laffineur (eds). TEXNH: Craftsmen, Craftswomen, and Craftsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age. (Aegaeum, 16: Liège, 1997), 27-90.
16. D. Evely, ‘The potters’ wheel in Minoan Crete’, BSA 83 (1988), 83-126.
17. S. Andreou, Pottery Groups of the Old Palace Period in Crete (PhD dissertation, Cincinnati, 1978).
18. H. and M. van Effenterre, ‘Maisons IV: Le Quartier Theta (1959-60), Études cretoises (Paris, 1976).
19. cf. Andreou (n. 19).
20. At Knossos itself there are very few closed deposits of MM II B date.
21. A. J. Evans, ‘The palace at Knossos. Provisional report of the excavations’, BSA 10 (1903-1904), 1-62.
22. D. E. MacKenzie, ‘The Middle Minoan pottery of Knossos’, JHS 26 (1906), 243-6710.2307/624377.
23. G. Cadogan, P. M. Day, C. F. Macdonald, S. A. MacGillivray, N. Momigliano, T. M. Whitelaw, and D. E. Wilson, ‘Early Minoan and Middle Minoan pottery groups at Knossos’, BSA 88 (1993), 21-8.
24. C. F. Macdonald, E. Hatzaki, and C. Knappett, ‘Middle Minoan pottery from south of the South-West House, Knossos’, BSA Studies (forthcoming).
25. D. G. Hogarth and F. B. Welch. ‘Primitive painted pottery in Crete’, JHS 21 (1901), 78-98 10.2307/623869.
26. J. L. Myres, ‘Prehistoric polychrome pottery from Kamarais in Crete’. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 15 (1895), 351-6.
27. D. E. MacKenzie, ‘The pottery of Knossos’. JHS 23 (1903), 157-205 10.2307/623763.
28. Evans (n. 24).
29. Levels beneath the Olive Press Room, the Kamares Magazines in the SE Palace Quarter, and the NW Pit.
30. A.J. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos, i (London, 1921).
31. MacGillivray (n. 6) is also uncertain as to why Evans alters his opinion, but supposes that it was on stylistic grounds.
32. N. Momigliano, ‘Duncan MacKenzie: a cautious canny Highlander’, in C. Morris (ed.). Klados: Essays in Honour of J. N. Coldstream. (BICS supp. 63; London, 1995), 163-70.
33. Pendlebury (n. 9). pls xvi-xvii.
34. Id., ‘The Early and Middle Minoan periods at Knossos’, BICS 13 (1966), 110-11.
35. Id., AR 1973-4.
36. D. Levi, Festos e la civiltà minoica, I (Incunabula Graeca. 60: Rome, 1976): D. Levi and F. Carinci, Festos e la civiltà minoica, II, (Incunabula Graeca. 77: Rome, 1988).
37. cf. Levi and Carinci (n. 42).
38. For Phaistos types, cf. E. Fiandra, ‘Skutelia MM a Festos’, in Cretological, (1973), 84-91.
39. P. M. Day and D. E. Wilson, ‘Consuming power: Kamares Ware in Protopalatial Knossos’, Antiquity, 72 (1998), 350-8.
40. Andreou (n. 19).
41. G. Walberg, Kamares: A Study of the Character of Palatial Middle Minoan Pottery (Uppsala, 1976).
42. Levi and Carinci (n. 4.2).
43. G. Walberg, Provincial Middle Minoan Pottery (Mainz, 1983).
44. P. M. Warren, ‘Problems of chronology in Crete and the Aegean in the 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC’, AJA 84 (1980), 487-9910.2307/504077 G. Cadogan, ‘Early Minoan and Middle Minoan chronology’, AJA 87 (1983), 507-1810.2307/504109.
45. P. M. Warren and V. Hankey, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol, 1989).
46. J. A. MacGillivray, Pottery Groups of the Old Palace Period at Knossos (Ph.D. thesis. University of Edinburgh, 1986).
47. Id., ‘The foundation of the Old Palaces in Crete ’, Cretological, 6, A1 (1990), 429-34.
48. Evans (n. 33), 186.
49. MacGillivray (ns. 52, 53).
50. Id., ‘The early history of the Palace at Knossos; (MM I-II), in D. Evely et al. (eds). A Labyrinth of History: Papers in Honour of Sinclair Hood, (Oxford, 1994), 45-55.
51. Contra Pendlebury (n. 9). and MarGillivray (n. 53).
52. N. Momigliano, ‘MM I A pottery from Evans’ excavations at Knossos: a reassessment’, BSA 86 (1991), 150-271.
53. For example, N. Momigliano and D. E. Wilson, ‘Knossos 1993: excavations outside the south front of the Palace’, BSA 90 (1996), 1-57. They identify a fill of pottery beneath the Early Paving of the south front of the palace at Knossos as belonging to MM I B, as defined in Cadogan et al. (n. 26).
54. Warren and Hankey (in. 51).
55. Cadogan et al. (n. 26).
56. cf. Macdonald, Hatzaki, and Knapped (n. 27).
57. The Loomweight Basement as described by Sir Arthur Evans (n. 33) appears to have had MM III A stratified over deposits of MM II B (cf. also MacGillivray, n. 6), but the material from these two strata in the Stratigraphical Museum seems to have become mixed.
58. Cf. MacGillivray (n. 56).
59. M. R. Popham, ‘Trial KV (1969), a Middle Minoan building at Knossos,’ BSA 69 (1974), 181-94.
60. E. J. Forsdyke, ‘The Mavro Spelio cemetery at Knossos’, BSA 28 (1927), 243-96.
61. P. P. Betancourt, The History of Minoan Pottery (Princeton, 1985).
62. Walberg (n. 47). 126.
63. Ead. (n. 49).
64. Pendlebury (n. 9), pl. XXII: 3.I. Note there are examples of this type in the sherd material of both the Royal Road South Upper Basement and the MM II A deposit P93/S.VII.5 recently excavated by Dr Colin Macdonald.
65. Fiandra (n. 44).
66. MacGillivray (n. 56).
67. See AR 1973-4 and 1987-8.
68. Evans (n. 33), 186.
69. Cf. MacGillivray (n. 56).
70. H. B. Lewis, The Manufacture of Early Mycenaean Pottery (Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1983).
71. Even though in her chapter on the ethnography of pottery making she includes a section on ‘Hand and Wheel Combination Methods’, in her thesis there is no further consideration given to the methodology one might require for the identification of such processes from the finished products alone.
72. H. J. Franken, ‘Analysis of methods of potmaking in archaeology’, Harvard Theological Review, 64 (1971), 227-55S001781600003251X.
73. Roux and Corbetta (n. 2).
74. Foster 1959b (n. 7), 102.
75. S. F. van der Leeuw, Studies in the Technology of Ancient Pottery (Amsterdam, 1976).
76. Id, (n. 81), 239.
77. Cf. Foster 1959a. 1959b (n. 7).
78. Van der Leeuw (n. 81), 329-37
79. H.J. Franken and F. Kalsbeek, Potters of a Medieval Village in the Jordan Vally (Amsterdam, 1975).
80. Potters of a Medieval Village in the Jordan Vally, 38.
81. This point is also made by Arnold and Bourriau (n. 12).
82. O. S. Rye, Pottery Technology: Principles and Reconstruction (Washington DC, 1981).
83. Roux and Courty (n. 16).
84. P. M. Rice, Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook (Chicago, 1987).
85. Term coined by Ronx and Courty (n. 16).
86. Arnold and Bourriau (n. 12).
87. Franken and Kalsbeek (n. 85).
88. In this process a large body of clay is centred, more than is needed tor a single vessel. The first vessel is thrown, and is removed from the remaining body of centred clay with a knife or string. The potter then proceeds to throw a second vessel from the centred clay, and so on, depending on the quantity of clay on the wheel. Thus technique is alternatively known as throwing ‘from the hump’.
89. Rye (n. 88). 74.
90. For more detail see Franken and Kalsbeek (n. 85). 32-3.
91. Roux and Courly (n. 16).
92. S. E. van der Leeuw, ‘The pottery from a Middle-Uruk dump at Tepe Sharafabad, Iran. A technological study’ (n.d.).
93. Id (n. 81).
94. Id. 125.
95. Franken and Kalsbeek (n. 85), 143.
96. S. E. van der Leeuw, ‘Giving the potter a choice: conceptual aspects of pottery techniques’, in Lemonnier (n. 5), 238 88.
97. O. S. Rye and C. Evans, ‘Traditional pottery techniques of Pakistan: field and laboratory studies’. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, 21 (Washington DC, 1976).
98. As noted by Foster 1959a, 1959b (n. 7).
99. Van der Leeuw (n. 98).
100. Arnold and Bourriau (n. 12), 53: and fig. 57.
101. Roux and Corbetta (n. 2).
102. Hood (n. 40).
103. MacGillivray (n. 6) has argued convincingly that this style is a late MM I A feature.
104. This is based on macroscopic comparisons rather than petrographic examination.
105. Sinclair Hood has isolated a handful of sherds from the MM I A Rubbish Levels of the Royal Road South that may be wheel-thrown. It is of considerable interest that they are all in the same ‘Pedhiadha red’ fabric.
106. Day et al. (n. 17), 278.
107. Roux and Courty (n. 16).
108. Warren (n. 15).
109. i.e. in terms of their cognitive mappa mundi: cf. van der Leeuw (n. 102).
110. Warren (n. 15). 226.
111. I would like to thank Sander van der Leeuw for alerting me to this alternative.
112. Lewis (n. 76) states that ‘Ethnographic examples show that scraping is a procedure used only with hand-built pottery.’ On the contrary, wheel-throwing often lacks the control of skilled hand-building, and scraping, particularly of the lower body, can be necessary (van der Leeuw pers. comm.).
113. Also present in the Early West Magazines in some quantities.
114. Such variation in technological knowledge within the same site in the same period is staggering, and the implications for the character of workshop organization are profound.
115. See MacGillivray (n. 6).
116. As in MM I B. all moderately-large vessels are coil-built, perhaps with some rotational aid.
117. For more examples from this period of medium and medium-large vessels that are coil-built with no rotational aid. c.f. PLATES 22 d, 23 a, and 23 d, which can be contrasted with the wheel-thrown medium jar in PLATES 23 b and 23 c.
118. Lewis (n. 76), 73.
119. C. J. Knappett, Ceramic Production and Distribution in Protopalatial Crete: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives (Ph.D. thesis. Cambridge, 1997).
120. MacGillivray (n. 6).
121. Popham (n. 65).
122. H. W. Catling, E. A. Catling, and D. Smyth, ‘Knossos 1975: Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I Houses by the Acropolis’, BSA 74 (1979), 1-80.
123. This deposit will be published by C. F. Macdonald and E. Hatzaki in due course.
124. Where Roux and Courty (n. 16), 48, have argued that ‘wheel throwing appears more like an evolution of concept, developed through a stage of wheel shaping’.
125. Van der Leeuw (n. 102).
126. As highlighted by Roux and Corbetta (n. 2).
127. It would not require a specialist to bring the wheel device from the Near East, but it would to bring the technical knowledge. One might also note that the adoption of the wheel-throwing technique would occur more smoothly if the technical knowledge held by Minoan artisans was predisposed towards it. Coil-building and rotation finishing is a common technique in the later Prepalatial period, and this would certainly have been consistent with the logic of wheel-throwing, cf. van der Leeuw (n. 102), 262.
128. In terms of links to the Near East, Watrous (n. 3) has argued that a cultural ‘package’ is taken on board by the Minoans; this package would include the institution of kingship, along with kingly regalia, administrative practices using scripts, monumental architecture and other crafts. Wheel-thrown pottery and the skilled artisans producing it may have formed part of the package.
129. M. Helms, Craft and the Kingly Ideal (pAustin. Tex., 1993).
130. It is unclear if we should look specifically to the Levant, to Egypt or to Anatolia. A wheel-thrown carinated cup looking quite similar to MM I II examples from East Crete has been found at Ialysos on Rhodes, cf. M. Benzi, ‘Evidence for a Middle Minoan settlement on the acropolis at Ialysos (Mt. Philerimos)’, in Hägg and Marinatos (n. 8), 93-105. Benzi also notes that similar carinated cups have been found at Serraglio on Kos, and at Tigani on Samos. These finds begin to suggest an Anatolian connection for carinated cups and, by extension, the wheel-throwing technique. For the idea that silver kantharoi (such as the one from Gournia) are of Anatolian derivation, see E. N. Davis, The Vapheio Cups and Aegean Gold and Silver Ware (London, 1977.
131. S. W. Manning, Before Daidalos: The Origins of Complex Society, and the Genesis of the State on Crete (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1993).
132. For ‘Egyptianizing’ features at Mallia cf. J.-C. Poursat, ‘Une thalassocratie minoenne au Minoen Moyen II?’, in Hägg and Marinatos (n. 8), 86-7; in general comments (It is unclear if we should look specifically to the Levant, to Egypt or to Anatolia. 113), Poursat notes that Kamares Ware has been found in Egyptian workers’ houses at Kahun, which may mean that Minoan artisans had worked there for a considerable period of time. The possibility of direct interaction between Egyptian and Minoan craftsmen is also mentioned by S. A. Immerwahr, ‘The possible influence of Egyptian art in the creation of Minoan wall painting’, in P. Dareque and J.-C. Poursat (eds), L'icongraphie minoenne (BCH supp. 11: Athens, 1985), 41-50.
133. Helms (n. 135).
134. T. Bargatzky, ‘Innovation and the integration of sociocultural systems’, in van der Leeuw and Torrence (n. 5), 16-32.
135. Mahias (n. 5).
136. Helms (n. 135).
137. Evans (n. 33), ii, 116, himself points out some mystical associations. He calls attention to the tradition that Talos invented the wheel, and that an alternative Greek name for Talos is Perdix, the swift moving demon of Minos.
138. D. A. Spratt, ‘Innovation theory made plain’, in van der Leeuw and Torrence (n. 5), 245-57.
139. R. Layton, ‘Pellaport’, in van der Leeuw and Torrence (n. 5), 33-53; F. Cancian, ‘Stratification and risk-taking: a theory tested on agricultural innovation’, American Sociological Review, 32 (1967), 912-2710.2307/2092845 5624925.
140. Van der Leeuw (n. 98).
141. Roux and Courty (n. 16): van dor Leeuw (n. 98).
142. Manning (n. 137).