Prehistoric Aegean

The Prehistoric Aegean ca. 2700– 2500 BCE

EARLY CYCLADIC ART, ca. 3000– 2000 BCE 

Marble statuettes are the major surviving artworks of the Cycladic Islands during the third millennium BCE, but little is known about their function.Many of the Cycladic figurines were buried in graves and may represent the deceased, but others, for example, musicians, almost certainly do not. Whatever their meaning, these statuettes mark the beginning of the long history of marble sculpture in Greece.

LATE MINOAN ART, ca. 1700– 1200 BCE 

The so-called Old Palace period (ca. 2000– 1700 BCE) on Crete saw the construction of the first palaces on the island, but the golden age of Crete was the Late Minoan period.The greatest Late Minoan palace was at Knossos. A vast multistory structure arranged around a central court, the Knossos palace was so complex in plan that it gave rise to the myth of the Minotaur in the labyrinth of King Minos.The largest art form in the Minoan world was fresco painting on walls, usually illustrating palace rituals like bull-leaping.Vase painting also flourished. Sea motifs, for example, the octopus, were popular subjects.Minoan sculpture was of small scale, consisting of statuettes of  “snake goddesses” and reliefs on stone vases.

MYCENAEAN (LATE HELLADIC) ART, ca. 1700– 1200 BCE 

The Mycenaeans, who with their Greek allies later waged war on Troy, were already by 1600– 1500 BCE burying their kings in deep shaft graves with gold funeral masks and bronze daggers inlaid with gold and silver. By 1450 BCE, the Mycenaeans had occupied Crete, and between 1400 and 1200 BCE, they erected great citadels at Mycenae, Tiryns, and elsewhere with “ Cyclopean” walls of huge, irregularly shaped stone blocks. Masters of corbel vaulting, the Mycenaeans also erected beehive- shaped tholos tombs like the so-called Treasury of Atreus, which had the largest dome in the pre-Roman world. The oldest preserved monumental sculptures in Greece, most notably Mycenae’s Lion Gate, date to the end of the Mycenaean period. In the Iliad, Homer describes the Greek armies poised before the walls of Troy.

Clan after clan poured out from the ships and huts onto the plain . . . innumerable as the leaves and blos-soms in their season . . . the Athenians . . . the men of Argos and Tiryns of the Great Walls . . . troops from the great stronghold of Mycenae, from wealthy Corinth . . . from Knossos . . . Phaistos . . . and the other troops that had their homes in Crete of the Hundred Towns.

The Greeks had come to seek revenge against Paris

• Trojan prince who had abducted Helen, wife of the King of Sparta.
• Written around 750 BCE, the Iliad is the first great work of Greek literature.
• Until about 1870, the poem was generally regarded as just fiction.

  TROY AND MYCENAE

• In the late 1800s, Heinrich Schliemann uncovered some of the very cities Homer named in the Iliad.
• In 1870, he began work at Hissarlik on the northwestern coast of Turkey.
• Schliemann dug into a mound and found a number of cities built on top of one another.
• One of them had been destroyed by fire in the 13th century BCE.
• This was the Troy of King Priam and his son Paris.

Schliemann continued his excavations at Mycenae where he believed King Agamemnon had once ruled.

• He found a massive fortress palace with a monumental gateway
• domed tombs beneath earth mounds
• huge quantities of gold jewelry, masks, and cups
• inlaid bronze weapons

MINOAN CRETE

• Another legendary figure was King Minos of Knossos on the island of Crete.
• Took from Athens a group of young men and women to be fed to the Minotaur (half bull and half man – lived in a labyrinth)

In 1900

• English archaeologist, Arthur Evans uncovered a palace that resembled a maze.
• Evans named its builders the Minoans, after their mythological king.

AEGEAN ARCHAEOLOGY TODAY

• Two texts give us a lot of information about this area
• Linear A and Linear B.
• Linear B was an early form of Greek.
• Humans lived in Greece as far back as the late Paleolithic period
• Village life was established in Greece and on Crete in Neolithic times.

The prehistoric Aegean has three geographic areas (look at the map above)

• Each is very distinct.

Cycladic art is the art of the Cycladic Islands . Minoan art from the island of Crete.  Helladic art is the art of Greece (Hellas in Greek).  Each area is divided into early, middle, and late periods.

CYCLADIC ART

• Marble was abundant in the quarries of the Aegean Islands, especially on Naxos and Paros.
• The sculptors of the Early Cycladic period used the marble to produce statues with abstract forms.

WOMAN FROM SYROS

• Most of the Cycladic sculptures represent nude women
• Arms folded across their abdomens.
• Have been found in graves and in settlements
• Vary in height from a few inches to almost life- size.

This statute is about a foot and a half tall

• Only about a half inch thick
• Comes from a grave on the island of Syros.
• Large simple triangles
• the head, the body and the triangular pubic area.

The feet are too fragile to support the figurine.

• Must have been placed on the grave lying down on their backs, like the dead.

Not sure if they represent dead women, fertility figures or goddesses. 

• Slight belly may suggest pregnancy.
• At least parts of these sculptures were colored.

LYRE PLAYER FROM KEROS

The are also male figures in Cycladic sculpture. Most elaborate of these is the lyre player from Keros.

• Seated musician may be playing for the deceased in the afterlife.
• Same simple shapes as the previous figure.
• Ancient art is usually anonymous and undated. 

These figures are very popular with collectors

• Treasure hunters have destroyed many sites and smuggled their finds out of Greece.
• Entire prehistoric cemeteries and towns have been destroyed.
• Only about 10 percent of the known Cycladic marble statues come from secure archaeological sites.

MINOAN ART

• Third millennium BCE
• Aegean Islands and on the Greek mainland
• Most settlements were small
• Consisted only of simple buildings.

Very rarely were the dead buried with precious objects During the second millennium, large buildings were constructed. I’ve included the two maps below so that you can see where these people lived that created the artworks included below.  There are several things I think about when viewing a work of art: the time period it was made, where it was made, the culture that existed at that time, the environment (ice age art will look very different from work in a desert), and lastly religious and political ideologies that also may have influenced the artist.  You cannot look at artworks independent of all these factors.  That being said, there are still works of art that I look at, think of all these influences, and then still not find interesting.  If I’ve thought about all of the above and feel that way, my thoughts are perfectly fine. So why the long paragraph? Take a look at the map.  The people who live on the island have very distinct works of art when compared to those on mainland Europe.  The island used to be a volcano.  When the volcano erupted, the center of the island sunk below the sea.  Many works of art describe this event.

Architecture

• Largest palace on Crete
• Home of King Minos.
• Large central court – surrounded by residential and administrative buildings.

Old Palace First palace (Old Palace Period)

• Period came to an end around 1700 BCE
• Fire destroyed these structures, probably after an earthquake.
• Began rebuilding almost immediately.
• Palaces were made larger, more comfortable
• residential suites for the king and his family
• courtyards for pageants, ceremonies, and games.

PALACE AT KNOSSOS

• Largest of the palaces at Knossos
• Home of King Minos.
• Theseus battled with the Minotaur.
• According to the myth, after defeating the monster, Theseus found his way out of the maze complex with the aid of the king’s daughter, Ariadne.
• She had given Theseus a roll of thread to mark his path through the labyrinth.

The palace was built on a slope surrounded by plains

• Surrounded by mansions and villas of the wealthy.
• New layout suggests that the palace was carefully planned
• court served as the center.

Mazelike plan of the Knossos palace

• Created the Greek myth of the labyrinth inhabited by the Minotaur.
• At the northwest corner of the palace is a theater like area (No. 5)
• Steps on two sides that may have served as seats.
• Possible forerunner to the Greek theater.

If you’ve seen the movie the Labyrinth or have read the story, you can see where both of these got their influences. Very complex

• Had at least three stories.

Minoan columns get smaller at the bottom

• Egyptian and Greek columns get smaller at the top

Created areas with interior light and air wells through staircases

• This new palace was carefully planned
• provided light and ventilation
• Also created drains for rainwater
• well constructed
• thick walls made of rough fieldstones pressed into clay.
• Painted wooden columns
• distinctive capitals and shafts.

The bulbous, cushionlike Minoan capitals resemble those of the later Greek Doric order.  We will take a look at these different “orders” later in the semester.

Painting

Frescoes covered the Knossos palace walls.

• This fragment depicts a woman or a goddess with a large frontal eye on her profile head.
• Paintings depict many parts of Minoan life
• bull-leaping, processions, and ceremonies
• nature (birds, animals, flowers, and marine life).

LA PARISIENNE  (The Parisian Woman)

• Some have argued that she is a priestess taking part in a religious ritual
• The figure has no arms, most likely a statue of a goddess.

Egyptians painted in fresco secco (dry fresco) Minoans coated their walls with a white lime plaster and used a true (wet) fresco

• The pigments are mixed with water and plaster
• buon (true) fresco is better than fresco secco because the paints chemically bond to the plaster instead of sitting on top of the plaster as in fresco secco.
• Become chemically bound to the plaster after it dries.

Bull Leaping

• Paintings are often ceremonial scenes
• This one of bull-leaping.
• The women have light skin and the man has dark skin. Why might this be? If you think of the roles of men and women at this time, women would have mostly been indoors taking care of family while men would have been outside hunting and gathering.
• Only fragments of the full painting have been recovered 
• the dark patches are original; the rest is a modern restoration

Thera Frescoes (also known as Spring)

• One of the first pure landscape paintings
• A landscape painting usually has no people in it and no story
• Aegean muralists painted in wet fresco, which required them to paint fast.

Until about 20,000 BCE

• Thera had a roughly circular shape and gentle slopes. 
• A volcanic eruption blew out the center of the island
• Left behind the moon-shaped main island and several lesser islands grouped around a bay that resembles the shape of the ancient volcano.

In that eruption

• the site of Akrotiri
• buried by a layer of volcanic rock and ash more than 3 feet to 15 feet deep. 
• Closer to the volcano’s cone, the tephra (ash) is almost 180 feet yards deep. 

The Akrotiri frescoes

• decorated the walls of houses, not palaces
• the number of painted walls from the site is impressive.
• Show moving and brightly colored rocks
• Plants move in the breezes
• Birds fly around, seems happy and light

After the rain of ash, the people of Crete suffered from starvation.

• The exact date of the eruption has been pinpointed to 1628 BCE

 

MINOAN POTTERY 

• Kamares ware vessels
• named for the cave on t Mount Ida where they were discovered.
• sophisticated patterns and shapes
• polychromatic – poly meaning multiple and chromatic meaning color (multiple colors)

On the jar

• the theme is a leaping fish
• perhaps a fishnet
• surrounded by curve abstract patterns such as waves and spirals.

Kamares vases have white and reddish brown decoration on a black background. Late Minoan Marine Style octopus jar from Palaikastro Octopus jar

• the tentacles fill the shape perfectly.
• have dark figures on a light ground.
• where made about the same time as the palaces at Knossos.

Early Minoan period ceramics

• characterized by patterns of spirals, triangles, curved lines, crosses, and fishbones.

Middle Minoan period

• naturalistic designs such as fish, squid, birds, and lilies.

The image above and the next three images below are photos I took at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  If you ever go to NY, you must go to this museum. You could literally spend a month there and not see everything.  Although the Minoan pottery seems less advanced than other works we’ve seen, what I like about it is how close the people were to their environment.  You can tell from looking at these pots that their lives revolved around the ocean and the food they were able to take from it. Late Minoan period

• flowers and animals were still common, but had more of them.

These very small female figures are somewhat crude, almost as if they were done by everyday people and not experienced artists.  If you notice, they are all women, and all of them have their hands to their faces as if they are saluting.  If you think about their culture and where they lived though, you might realize that in fact, the women are not saluting, they are shielding their eyes from the sun.  It is thought that as men would leave to go fishing early in the morning, women would place these tiny figures on the beach as lookouts for their husband’s safe return.

Snake Goddess

• No temples or large statues of gods, kings, or monsters have been found in Minoan Crete.
• Large wooden images may once have existed but what remains is usually small.

Faience (low-fired opaque glasslike salt clay) statue known as the Snake Goddess.

• Reconstructed from many pieces
• one of several similar figurines that some scholars believe may represent mortals rather than a deity
• the exposed breasts suggest that it may be a divine fertility figure.
• May represent a priestess,
• More likely a goddess.
• The snakes in her hands and the cat on her head imply that she has some power over the animal world.
• The figure is frontal, like Egyptian and Near Eastern works
• The costume, with its open shirt and ruffled skirt, is Minoan.

Palaikastro Youth

• Probably representing a young god
• early example of chryselephantine (gold and ivory) sculpture
• technique was later used for expensive Greek statues.
• nearly 20 inches tall
• made from hippopotamus-tusk ivory and gold (probably imported from Egypt)
• serpentine, and rock crystal.
• carved the muscles and veins.
• had a shaved head with one braid
• was found alone in a shrine
• seems to have been a god and not a mortal.
• was broken and scattered and blackened, could have been vandalized.

Harvesters Vase

• Only the top and neck of the vase were preserved.
• First time we see muscles and skeleton structure of the human body.

Missing

• lower parts of the harvesters (or sowers)
• ground they stand on
• gold leaf that originally covered the figures.

Minoans liked works of art that were full of movement and energy. The relief shows a crowd singing and shouting as they go or return from the fields. 

• Most of the figures use the combined profile and frontal views
• The sculptor singled out one figure from the rest.
• He shakes a rattle
• The artist shows him in full profile
• His lungs so inflated with air that his ribs show.
• His face shows emotion

MINOAN DECLINE 

• Not sure why the Minoan civilization ended
• Most believe that the Mycenaeans had moved onto Crete
• Had established themselves at Knossos.
• Appear to have ruled the island for at least 50 years, maybe longer.
• Palace was destroyed in 1200 BCE

MYCENAEAN ART

• Origins of Mycenaean culture is still debated.
• Came before the Greeks about the time the old palaces were built on Crete
• About 2000 BCE.
• By 1500 BCE Mycenaean culture was flourishing in Greece.
• Centuries later, Homer described Mycenae as “rich in gold.”

TIRYNS

• About 10 miles from Mycenae
• was laid out as a fortified capital, meaning surrounded by walls
• In the Iliad, Homer called Tiryns the city “of the great walls.”
• Huge, rough cut stone blocks are examples of Cyclopean stone work
• The Greeks believed humans could not have built the city
• Named after the mythical one-eyed monsters.

Architecture 

• Most impressive Mycenaean remains are those of the palaces at Tiryns and Mycenae. 
• Both were built beginning about 1400 BCE
• Burned (along with all the others) between 1250 and 1200 BCE
• Mycenaeans seem to have been over-run by northern invaders
• May have also fought with themselves

The walls of Tiryns

• Average about 20 feet in thickness.
• contain a long corbel-vaulted gallery
• irregular blocks were piled in horizontal courses
• leaned inward until the two walls met in a pointed arch.
• No mortar was used
• held in place only by the weight of the blocks
• used smaller stones used as wedges
• used clay to fill some of the empty spaces.

Post-and-lintel construction (a) was the norm in ancient Greece, but the  Mycenaeans also used corbeled arches (b).  The round arch (c), used in the Near East, was popular in Rome. Map of Tiryns

Pay attention to hall fortified this city was.  The only access was the approach ramp (top right on the map).  If an enemy was attacking, this would force them into a narrow hallway where they could then be attacked from above.

LION GATE, MYCENAE 

• Anyone who wanted to attack had to go up a long ramp
• forced the soldiers to expose themselves.
• If they got that far — they had to pass through a series of narrow gates
• could be defended easily.
• Protected on the left by a wall built on a natural rock outcropping
• on the right by a wall of large blocks.
• arch is whats called a corbelled arch, meaning the blocks are stacked like a deck of cards
• enemies would have to enter this 20-foot-wide channel and face defenders above them on both sides.

Largest sculpture in prehistoric Aegean

• relief of confronting lions
• fills the triangle of Mycenae’s main gate.
• The gate itself consists of two great monoliths and a huge lintel.
• Similar groups appear in miniature on Cretan seals

The idea of placing guardian figures at the entrances to palaces, tombs, and sacred places started in the Near East and Egypt. The animals’ heads were made separately and have been lost. May have been composite animals, maybe sphinxes.

Megaron

• king’s reception and throne room
• consisted of a hall with a columnar porch
• similar to early Greek temples.
• had a throne against the right wall and a central fireplace
• bordered by four Minoan-style wooden columns
• served as supports for the roof.

Treasury of AtreusThe Lion Gate at Mycenae was constructed a few generations before the Trojan War. The best-preserved Mycenaean tholos tomb (beehive tomb) is named for Homer’s King Atreus.

• Mound made from earth covers the burial chamber
• Accessed through a doorway at the end of a long passageway.
• Wealthy Mycenaeans were buried outside the citadel walls in beehive-shaped tombs
• Nine are preserved at Mycenae and more at other sites.

Beehive-shaped tholos (dome shaped tomb)

• Made of corbeled (stacked) courses of stone blocks laid on a circular base.
• About 43 feet high
• was the largest vaulted space without interior supports that had ever been built. 
• It wasn’t until the Romans built the Pantheon almost 1,500 years later using new technology— concrete— that this was surpassed.

All the gold that was found there is covered in the next section.

Metalwork, Sculpture, and Painting Treasury of Atreus

• looted before archaeologists found it
• excavators have found other treasures in other places around Mycenae.

Just inside the Lion Gate

• Schliemann uncovered what is now called Grave Circle A.
• 300 years older than the Lion Gate and the walls of Mycenae.

Grave Circle A encloses six deep shafts

• had served as tombs for kings and their families.
• the dead were laid to rest on the floors of these shaft graves
• masks covered their faces
• similar to Egyptian practices
• Buried women with their jewelry
• Men with their weapons and gold cups.

MASKS AND DAGGERS

Homer described the Mycenaeans as “rich in gold.” Beaten gold (repoussé) mask of a bearded man

• comes from a royal shaft grave.
• One of the first attempts at life-size sculpture in Greece.
• There were several found

Masks were found with young faces as well as old ones. Also found in Grave Circle A several bronze dagger blades inlaid with gold, silver, and niello (a black metallic alloy). The largest and most elaborate

• decorated on one side with a scene of four hunters attacking a lion that has struck down a fifth hunter
• two other lions run away.
• The other side shows lions attacking deer.

Skinny, long-haired figures are Minoan in style

• The subject matter is from the Near East
• Likely that a Minoan metalworker made the dagger for a patron who admired Minoan art.

When looking at these gold objects, be aware that every bit of this is made by hand with no electric tools. That fact alone always amazes me.

Plaster SculptureLarge-scale figure art is very rare on the Greek mainland.Painted white plaster head of a woman

• Large staring eyes
• White flesh tone indicates that the head is female.
• Hair and eyes are dark blue, almost black
• Lips, ears, and headband are red.

The artist decorated the cheeks and chin with red circles surrounded by red dots, After the collapse of Mycenaean civilization and for the next several hundred years

• no attempts at large statues were made until Greek sculptors were exposed to the art of Egypt.

Warriors VaseVase painting. 

• Popular even during the downfall of the Mycenaean palaces

Krater or mixing bowl (bowl for mixing wine and water)

• Shows a woman waving goodbye to a column of armed Mycenaean warriors
• used both silhouette and outline
• combination of frontal and profile views.
• no setting
• no landscape elements.
• Soldiers appear to be a pattern