July–December 1936

-6-

The two early Granary Style pots I found at Kourion are probably unique. Two tombs at Enkomi contained searabs of Ramses III, but they contained only poor local pottery, later in style than that found with imported L.H.III, and did not contain L.H.III.

So for the East Mediterranean the indications all are that great quantities of Mycenaean pottery, of uniform quality and style, were shipped far and wide during the 14th century, and probably until about the middle of the thirteenth, but that they suddenly stopped, at the same time everywhere. This implies changes at home rather than a failure of the demand.

For the subsequent period we must look to Greece. Until the 13th century the pottery found in the various Greek sites had been just as uniform as in the rest of the East. We know that the change is dated by the first appearance of the high angular false-necked jar, by the 3-handled jar with tall narrow neck, by the bell-shaped bowl, and by the panel style, and that these all appear during the reign of Ramses II. presumably not far from the middle of the 13th century. We now find in Greece the astounding fact that the appearance of Mycenaean ceramics into a in Greece itself to a disintegration of Mycenaean ceramics into a number of local styles. Mycenae has great numbers of bell-shaped bowls and the panel style becomes very popular; the tall kylix loses its decoration, and tends to drop out: the false-necked jar becomes rarer and squat. Argolis develops a type of kylix which is distinct from that of the Argolid, only a few miles away. Rhodes begins to make pottery in a deep brown clay with an ugly nearly matt black paint. The favorite shape is the false-necked jar, which becomes tall and large, in contrast to the small squat ones of the Argolid. The favorite decoration becomes the octopus, sprawling all over the pot in the "L.H.II" manner, all available space occupied with filling ornaments. Slightly later Kephallenia and Ithaca break away, carrying on their own version of the panel style, and bringing the stemmed kylix to its greatest popularity.

And so it goes. I do not mean to say that there is not still some interchange: Argive pieces are still common in Rhodes, Rhodian occurs in Thebes, Corinthian is found in Rhodes, etc.; but the styles are distinct, each one is in the majority in what I assume to be its home, and pieces from the outside are easily recognized because of differences of clay and style. These local differences run on into the period of the Granary Style and the Salamis period, and I suspect that time will show that they account for some of the differences between the various protogeometric styles.

To return to the question of the terminology. I have suggested grouping the old L.H.I and II into a unified Late Helladic I. I now propose that the term Late Helladic II be given to the pottery of the 14th century and the first part of the 13th century (Hutchinson's L.H.IIIa. Forsdyke's Late Mycenaean A). This is the period of uniformity and great expansion. My Late Helladic III, in turn, would represent the period of limitation after expansion and the breakup into local schools. It would run down to immediately before protogeometric, thus including all of Hurtley's L.H.IV, but some of his L.H.III too. It seems to me that that is not only a logical place for the break in terminology, it is the only logical place.

I do not yet pretend to know what caused the break-up. Certainly it is not improbable that Greece was unified early under one great ruler, and that something happened to allow it to divide up again into a