July–December 1936

Continued from scan 34

… work on L.H.III who has taken the trouble to gather together all of the certainly dated material, and use it as my point of departure in the study. I also know for a fact that I am the only person who has given the pottery from Mycenae and Tiryns with figured representations careful consideration; I am certain of that because much of this pottery has not been cleaned. In spite of the sixty years it has been in the National Museum, and I had to start my work by removing the dirt which was on the pottery when it was found, and which completely concealed the design. I am saying all of this about my methods of approach simply so that you will know that I have built my structure on personally controlled facts, and not on what somebody else says. Of course you must remember in all of this that the work is far from finished. I have spent about a year on it, and will need one or two more. So there are numerous points which I have not yet worked out, and there may be others which will have to be changed.

I said above that I am no longer in favour of introducing the term L.H.IV, but believe that a more far-reaching change is necessary. The change must begin at the very beginning of Late Helladic, with the telescoping of Wace and Blegen's L.H.I and II into one group, which I would call L.H.I. Practically everybody who has written on the matter has noted the fact that L.H.II is often a topological rather than a chronological term. In some places pottery which seems L.H.II is found but in others L.H.I seems to continue right straight through into L.H.III. Certainly early L.H.III contains a great many L.H.I elements which are missing from L.H.II. The same phenomenon is to be observed in Crete, and I believe that Evans has taken a step in the right direction. He says (I am sorry that I don't have the reference here) that in Knossos one gets a sequence of L.H.Ia, L.H.Ib, L.H.II, L.H.IIIA, but that L.H.III the "Palace style" is essentially Knossian and is not to be found in most of the rest of Crete, where the sequence is L.H.Ia, b, c, L.H.III. In other words the Palace style is not found, and L.H.I continues right through to L.H.III. Evans has infuriated Blegen by saying that Blegen's L.H.II, with the Epirnean were does not belong to a VI stage, but is the mainland counterpart of L.H.Ic. In spite of Blegen's fury I believe that Evans is quite right. L.H.II does occur in certain parts of Greece: both at Lycene and at Pylos where L.H.I figures imported into L.H.III (Palace found, but in most of Greece L.H.I runs through into L.H.III. Typical sites are Korakou, Zygouries, and Eleusis, to name only a few. I therefore think that I am more than justified in calling the whole period L.H.I

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You probably know most of the dated Egyptian finds of L.H.III. The chief ones, of course are Tell El Amarna with some 1500 fragments, all dated between 1375 and 1350. Gurob, Riqqeh, Sedment, Assuan, etc. The second Semitic period at Gezer is very useful. Macalister has dated its end at 1400, but that is a bit too high, since one scarab of Akhnaten was found in it. The great bulk of the dated material is of his parents who reigned from 1417 to 1378. I have tentatively assigned the close of the 2nd Semitic period at 1375, and I find that it fits in very well with the immediately succeeding Tell El Amarna and other Akhnaten material. A scarab of Amenophis III (1411-1378) was found at Kalyssos, where much of the material is early, and plaques with the same name were found by Tsountas at Mycenae, but no exact record was made of either find. More useful is a tomb at Enkomi (I don't recall the number, but you will find it in Excavations in Cyprus), which contained a scarab of Tiy (1411-1378), and a ring with the name of Amenophis IV. As you know that monarch changed his name to Akhnaten in the third year of his reign, so this ring must date between 1378 and 1375. The tomb was not carefully dug, and several pieces have been telescoped. In spite of this there are several pieces with "Palace style" survivals, which agree well with the Gezer II material, and which I feel reasonably safe in associating with the dated material. A figured sherd found in the dromos is stylistically comparable to what is probably the later