Heraklion Archaeological Museum - CollectiveAccess System : Clay objects : Cup with painted decoration of birds [Π3268]

Cup with painted decoration of birds

Π3268

Clay

Incomplete, mended and restored.

Height: 11 cm.

Palaikastro

Street between Blocks Β and Γ

Late Bronze Age. Postpalatial period, Late Minoan ΙΙΙ Α2/B period.:

1400-1200 BC:

Gallery:

Case:

113

Exhibition thematic unit:

Late Bronze Age - Postpalatial period (1300-1100 BC). Settlements. Sanctuaries. Tombs

Settlements

Description

Deep cylindrical cups with a single vertical handle appear in Crete in the Late Minoan III period, expressing one of the aspects of Mycenaean influence on Minoan pottery production. Both the shape and the decoration of this cup from Palaikastro belong stylistically to the vocabulary of the “Aegean Koine”, while displaying distinguishing features of local workshops and variants. The waterfowl that form the main decorative theme, combined with the stylised supplementary ornaments, are a favourite subject of contemporary vase-painters. Despite the decorativeness of the composition and the dominant tendency towards abstraction and stylisation of pictorial figures, the birds on this example preserve a semblance of naturalism, an echo of the images of the Minoan art of the previous centuries.

Bibliography:

Bosanquet, R.C. and R.M. Dawkins. The Unpublished Objects from the Palaikastro Excavations: 1902-1906. The British School at Athens. Supplementary Papers 1. London, 1923, fig. 77. Bosanquet, R.C. and R. Dawkins. “Excavations at Palaikastro, II”. Annual of the British School at Athens 9 (1902/1903), fig. 17. Betancourt, P.P. The History of Minoan Pottery. Princeton, 1985, pl. 30Μ.

Author:

I. N.

Photographs' metadata