• Stone vessel for multiple offerings



Stone vessel for multiple offerings
Stone vessel for multiple offerings

Stone vessel for multiple offerings

Λ914
Stone (Steatite)
Intact
Height: 7.5 cm.Length: 2.8 cm.
Palaikastro
Block Χ
Late Bronze Age. Neopalatial period, Late Minoan ΙI period.:
1500-1450 BC:
Gallery:
V
Case:
48
Exhibition thematic unit:
Late Bronze Age - Neopalatial period (1700-1450 BC). The New Palaces. The zenith of Minoan civilisation
Settlements of East Crete
Description
Composite offering vessel (kernos) for multiple offerings, with eight joined cups in two rows of four. On the long sides it has very small double handles, probably used as suspension-handles. One cup at the left end of the vessel has a spout. The cups communicated, allowing the liquid to flow through all eight, indicating that the vessel may have been a lamp. It is handmade from a single piece of soft limestone, black with white veins, without using a lathe or other mechanical assistance. The deep cavities would have been hollowed out with a wooden drill, using sand or emery as an abrasive. It is believed to have been made between Early Minoan II and Middle Minoan I (2700-1800 BC), but it was found in a domestic context of the Neopalatial period. The vessel is strikingly well made. It is one of the few composite offering vessels to be found in a domestic rather than a mortuary context.
Bibliography:
Bosanquet, R. C. and R. M. Dawkins. The Unpublished Objects from the Palaikastro Excavations 1902-1906. British School at Athens Supplementary Paper 1. London, 1923, 134, fig. 116. Warren, P. Minoan Stone Vases. Cambridge, 1969.
Author:
E. T.


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