Review Author(s): Jeremy Rutter Review by: Jeremy Rutter Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Jan., 1974), pp. 88-89 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/503774 Accessed: 01-04-2016 13:31 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms
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88 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY [AJA 78 numbers begin to blur in the mind; the observations are essentially transcriptions of the excavation note-
books which have not been distilled into readable form through surgery and interpretation. This is the
grand tradition, given extra prestige by Professor Blegen's reports from Troy, designed not to come
between the audience and the evidence in case of
future dispute, and to avoid discrepancies between notebooks and final report such as have haunted Knossos. It has the disadvantage of not being very readable, the advantage of concealing nothing from
scholars who may wish to reinterpret. The success of such a report depends on the working smoothness of the plates and indices. Dikaios' Enkomi makes it very easy to move from the plates to the Catalogue of Finds, since every illustrated object has its catalogue number on the plate and the catalogue numbers are in sequence by levels. It is not so easy to discover what objects lay together on any particular floor or in one room; they are not contiguous on the plates or in the catalogue. Every piece is classified, dated, and given its stratigraphic context with admirable clarity; and in the summaries (Vol. II) is interpreted. A tendency to illustrate more imported than native pottery is balanced by tables of percentages (II, 44iff). The index provides page references for, e.g., special groups of Mycenaean pottery found in the Ashlar Building. There is a concordance of photographs, plates, and line drawings. Only a few areas remain difficult to work with (part of a bull's head rhyton from a well, pl. 110.2,6280/I, took a long time to find in the text, finally emerging under Special
Groups, Area III); a few sherds are illustrated up-
side down, like the fighting bulls of pl. 71.6; on the whole the system works once you learn to handle it. The photographs are sharp (some, slightly dark); the line drawings and profiles are excellent; the plans and sections are superior, both loose and bound, with graphically readable devices and isometric drawings of major buildings. They deserve the whole volume (III b) they are given, fine work by Elias Markou. The important buildings and small finds of Dikaios' sectors of Enkomi are already well-known, through
prompt preliminary publication. Two large tombs (Nos. 2 and io) among robbed ones produced abun-
dant whole vases to balance the habitation sherd col-
lection. There is a high proportion of Mycenaean pictorial from site and tombs, to fuel the controversy
over where such vases were made. There is ivory,
faYence, gold, silver, alabaster; terracottas of women
and animals, lamps and lamp brackets, whorls and weights, bronze weapons and tools and ingots, potmarks and graffiti. The Cypro-Minoan tablets, clay balls, and rouleaux are well-presented, but must be
compared with Dr. Emilia Masson's distinguished work in Alasia I. Professor Edith Porada does the cylinders and stamp seals, Dr. Charles the scarabs,
Dr. Angeliki Pieridou comments on the pottery, in the full Appendices.
Appendix VII describes Dikaios' important excavations at Pyla-Verghi, Pyla-Kokkinokremos, and
Palaeokastro-Maa. Verghi is best known for its Mycenaean pictorial, Kokkinokremos for its Minoan imports, Maa for its fortifications and evidence for one of the early waves of permanent Mycenaean settlers in the late thirteenth century B.c. VII A adds an interpretation of the curious object carried by a nude footman on the Verghi krater as a copper ingot; Dikaios' thesis is, that a Mycenaean painter saw an ingot
in Cyprus, went home to Greece to paint it in a
chariot scene, and reexported the vase to his Cypriot
patron.
Porphyrios Dikaios was a scholar of international distinction, of great energy and highest standards.
Khirokitia and Sotira were his earlier monumental works, devoted to the exposition and interpretation of
the surprising Cypriote Neolithic culture. Enkomi is his ultimate achievement. Dikaios' account, in Volume I, of how he prepared the excavation report after leaving Cyprus, his vicissitudes in America and Germany, his homesickness for his colleagues of thirtyfour years in the Cyprus Museum and his warm thanks to them for making the publication possible, is a poignant document. Details of Enkomi are certain to be
argued in the future-how one could roof such a large
"tower" as that by the North Gate, how one is to understand Greek penetration into Cyprus in the Bronze Age; such arguments are natural for a site so complex, dug by so many nations over so many
generations. It is to Dikaios' eternal credit, that he made such arguments possible by the high standards of the excavation techniques and publication record of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities; Enkomi is a work to be proud of. EMILY VERMEULE HARVARD UNIVERSITY
KADMEIA I. MYCENAEAN FINDS FROM THEBES, GREECE. EXCAVATION AT 14 OEDIPUS ST. by Saran-
tis Symeonoglou (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, Vol. XXXV). Pp. io6, pls. 93. Astrom GSteborg, 1973. Ioo KR. This volume contains the first full publication of any of the numerous recent excavations of the Greek Archaeological Service in Thebes begun in 1963 and conducted continuously up to the present time. As such, it is the first detailed discussion of new material
from the Mycenaean settlement and palace site at
Thebes since Keramopoullos' publication of the "House of Kadmos" in 19o09. After a brief historical survey of the archaeological exploration of Thebes, the author makes clear with what difficulty and under what handicaps recent excavations in the town have been conducted (10-13). At 14 Oedipus Street, remains of the Early and Middle Helladic, Mycenaean, Classical,
and early and later Byzantine periods were found.
The present study is concerned almost exclusively with the Mycenaean material, and only a brief description of the architecture of the other periods is given (1314). At least two phases could be distinguished in the
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1974]
BOOK
Mycenaean buildings on the site, the first time at Thebes that two clearly distinguishable Mycenaean
architectural periods have been identified in the same excavation (14-22). To the first phase belong a small room with plastered floor and walls plausibly identified as a cistern (Room A), and four walls with the
same general NE/SW orientation. No date for any
REVIEWS
89
palace or may have formed part of a store either in a storeroom or in a workshop. The fragments of gold and lapis lazuli from Room B almost certainly come from a workshop (63-71), but the most interesting object from this room is a tool rather than a jewelan iron drill point identified as the earliest iron tool yet found in Greece.
and a clay structure in one corner identified as a kiln "for annealing and soldering metals." Only in
In his conclusions (72-76), the author reviews the dating of the earlier of the two identified Theban palaces, the "House of Kadmos," and concludes that the destruction of this building may tentatively be assigned to "the beginning of LH IIIA:2." Although agreeing with his rejection of the LH IIIA:I date upheld by Furumark and Keramopoullos and of the LH IIIB date championed by Mylonas and Raison, I cannot understand why Symeonoglou himself opts for an early rather than a late date in LH IIIA:2. As he himself observes, the resemblances between the late LH IIIA:2 burnt deposit from his own excavations and the pottery from the "House of Kadmos"
and earlier floor above a Middle Helladic stratum.
are close (73 n. 458e). It seems simplest to connect the burnt pottery and ivories of the pit and the unburnt pottery in the same area with the destruction of the
of these remains is suggested, but they clearly precede the walls of the second phase which cut through them. To this second phase are attributed three walls with very deep foundations running down to bedrock, two of which are oriented N/S, the third being a crosswall. These three later walls form two partially ex-
cavated rooms (Rooms B and C). The northern
Room B is identified as a jewelry workshop on the
basis of the large number of scraps of gold, lapis
lazuli, and rock crystal found on or near its floor, as well as by the discovery of some fragmentary tools
this area of the excavation was a floor deposit preserved, and a cut through the floor revealed a lower
The sherds from these floor levels, from the fill between them, and from the fill above the latest floor
are analysed in some detail with the aim of dating
the destruction of the building to which Rooms B and C belonged. The author concludes that the building, which he identifies as part of the "New Palace" be-
cause of its N/S orientation, its impressively deep
foundations, and the richness of its finds, was de-
stroyed during the second half of the LH IIIB:I
phase. There is no indication that the building was destroyed by fire, nor is there evidence for any subsequent Mycenaean activity in the area. All of the Mycenaean architecture discovered during the excavation was found in the central and western part of the site. Further to the east was found a pit containing a large number of burnt ivories and potsherds from which sixty vases were restored. In the same area but at a higher level and thus presumably on the ground surface around the pit was found a mass of potsherds which mended up into another fifty-two vases none of which showed traces of burning. The author presents these as two separate pottery groups, one burnt and one unburnt, but a detailed discussion leads to a date of LH IIIA:2 late
for both groups (23-43) and all Ii2 vases were probably in use at the same time. The author's interpretation of the intentional burning of the closed vases
and the ivories in a shallow pit as a ritual fire of
purification following an earthquake is ingenious, if
not based on concrete evidence. There is no evidence
presented to connect the hoard of burnt pottery and ivory with Rooms B and C, which may not yet have been built at the time when the fire in the pit to the east took place. The ivories, dated securely to LH IIIA:2, comprise
an important group which establishes Thebes as a
center of ivory carving (44-62). This latest group of Theban ivories may have decorated furniture in the
"House of Kadmos" in a late phase of LH IIIA:2.
Whenever it is to be dated, it is presumably sometime after this destruction that the "New Palace" was built, since it is unlikely that the two differently oriented palaces co-existed (74). Although Symeonoglou claims that "the evidence from our excavation indicates that
the New Palace was extant during the LH IIIA:2
period," this cannot be firmly maintained without a stratigraphic section linking his Rooms B and C with the burnt LH IIIA:2 deposit to the east. Pottery from beneath the final floor of Room B (figs. 29:2, 30:3,
3I:I, 34, 35) can be dated to LH IIIB and it could
well be that the "New Palace" was not built before
LH IIIB. The destruction of this building Symeonoglou dates to late LH IIIB:I, but pottery from rooms to the west which may belong to the same
building (fig. 2:6) now indicates that this last
Theban palace may not have been destroyed before
the very end of LH IIIB (Spyropoulos, AAA 3
[1970] 322-327). Given the fact that these many uncertainties with respect to the lifetimes of the two palaces remain, any attempt to harmonize the archaeological evidence with the literary tradition concerning Thebes in the period preceding the Trojan War seems
superfluous.
The excavations at 14 Oedipus Street have provided a large deposit of LH IIIA:2 pottery, a sizable number of ivories of the same date, firm evidence for at least two major Mycenaean building periods at Thebes, the
earliest known Mycenaean iron tool, and part of a jewelry workshop of the LH IIIB period. The re-
covery of this much material and information despite the great difficulties involved in the area's excava-
tion is certainly worthy of great admiration and
praise. Our knowledge of Mycenaean Thebes has increased tremendously as a result. JEREMY RUTTER UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
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