July–December 1936

Continued from scan 38

… bowls is the panel style, which is missing from the Egyptian finds and appears in Cyprus only at the very end of the period of importation. One of the bowls from stratum I [handwritten: (fig. 6)] is decorated with a guilloche In spite of representations to the contrary this design is not known from Tell El Amarna where there is only ~~~~, but it too first appears in the 3rd-2nd... of each 7 ... and on some false-necked jars of the high angular type. It is true that there are a few early sherds in the Lion Gate deposit, but they are no more significant; they were already the middle Helladic sherds which were also present. Then in the earth which drifted in [handwritten: Wace: 13 15 c.] [handwritten: Kourion ?? 1:6] [handwritten: possible significance is smashed by and all of 6]

As I suggested in my other letter to you, I think that the panel style sherds found at Tarsus in Intrusion 6g may date to some time in the middle of the thirteenth century. They are distinctly pre-Granary style. On the other hand the evidence from Cyprus and Egypt makes it clear that it cannot be earlier than that. Here as in the case of the other post-quem, I would like to think of the bulla simply as styling a date post-quem at least until such a time as the further explanation of the site at Tarsus reveals the probability that the contents of the intrusion were removed en-masse from an earlier level. In any case the date is very valuable since it shows that that particular stage in the development of the panel style must be placed rather during or after the second quarter of the 13th century. I imagine that the date will come in very handy when I learn more about the history of the period.

You asked me whether I felt sure that our bell-shaped bowls are really Granary Style, or whether they could not be earlier, and you mentioned several parallels: Korakou figs. 83, 85 and Heurtley 2:2; K.85 does seem like ours; I think that the rim rules out K.83. Heurtley's 2:2 is the same as Race's pl. VI which was found in the Granary and so must be contemporary with the other strictly Granary Style pottery. In spite of the decoration, which may be generically similar, I do not feel sure of it flaring type to the deep clumsy shape which is characteristic of the Salamis graves. Only very few of our pieces give enough so that I can feel sure on the basis of shape alone. The reddish bowl which was found either the first or the second season, more or less complete, and which you showed me already mended in the pottery room when I first arrived at Tarsus, is surely of the deep late type, and must be full Granary Style, but of course, since it is not from the stratified deposit in Tr.4. Ext.4 it is perhaps less significant. Two sherds from the 'downward extension of intrusion 66' and two from the 16.35-15.60 level must be from pots of the same type. The others are too small to tell. The patterns I think for the most part of Granary type. Most are decorated with nothing but horizontal bands, but a few have very simple spiral patterns which impress me as looking forward to Salamis rather than back to the 13th century. One has a certainly Granary wavy line. The opposed loops which are so common here, later than Wace's pl. VI, mentioned above, but more than any other factor, the technique convinces me that we are dealing with twelfth century pottery rather than thirteenth. It is the same as that of the Granary Style pottery from Mycenae, now in the Nauplia Museum, and quite distinct from that of the early 13th century bell-shaped bowls. Clay and paint are very much better in the 13th century than in the 12th, and ours certainly belong on the inferior side technically.