Here comes another installment of Minoan pottery types.  Now, I mentioned earlier that I did a lot of research for Knossos.  Among the generous replies from archaeologists like Dr. Colin Macdonald from the Athens School and Dr. Alexander MacGillivray, I sometimes managed to get information from graduate students (henceforth referred to as GS) in ( Read more... )

One item I left off the list from my initial "Writing A Historical Knossos" post of two weeks ago is pottery.  That's because pottery is such a hugely important and complicated subject that it needs its own post--indeed, it's so complex that I will have to give the subject three separate posts ( Read more... )

I haven't posted lately because I've been sick, but once I'm feeling better I have posts about Mycenaean pottery, Minoan sleuths, and some Danae backstory for you.

For a time between 2100-1700 B.C., the Kamares style (so named for the cave sanctuary in which the first examples were found) of pottery was popular in Minoan Crete.  This style features the use of fine clay fired with a dark slip, then decorated with motifs of octopi, crocuses, lilies, palm trees, and rosettes in shades of white, red, and brown.  ( Read more... )

Yesterday I drove down to Pacific Palisades to see the renovated Getty Villa.  I took many photographs, some of which did not come out, but managed to score shots of the Getty's small Aegean Bronze Age collection. 

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Apologies for not posting in a while, but I am very busy with edits for Orestes: The Warrior, which I hope to publish by next month.  At most, I manage to polish 8-10 pages a day.

Even though it will not be the subject of my next book, I am researching the history of Knossos from Neolithic times to 1200 B.C, which brings me to today's post.  Pottery ( Read more... )

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Wo-ka

Chariot

The Mycenaeans were a chariot-using people, and chariots and chariot parts are lovingly inventoried in the Linear B records.  The Mycenaean chariot was small, swift, and typically only carried two passengers; the Iliad speaks of the Greek heroes and their charioteers.

Homer does not mention the chariot actively being used in warfare, ( Read more... )

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This clay Minoan house was found in Archanes, just south of Knossos.  It might have been an architectural model for builders, or, as I prefer to think, it could have been a child’s plaything.

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Mycenaean children's artifacts are rare, but they have been found, as attested by these miniature feeding bottles.

In one excavation, a doll's head was found buried with a girl.  At first, the archaeologists assumed the head belonged to a cult figure placed there to protect the child in the grave, but then someone pointed out the little holes where ( Read more... )