Aegean Faience of the Bronze Age

Bronze Age faience is treated here both as a material and as a class of objects found from the Near East and Egypt to the Indus Valley, Europe and Africa, with the examples from Crete, the Greek mainland and the Aegean islands at the centre. The book takes in manufacturing methods, the ancient names for faience, glass paste and glass, regional production, object types, chronology and foreign relations. The Aegean material includes vessels, figurines, plaques, inlays, beads, ornaments and seals, each studied with its archaeological context and possible prototypes in stone, ceramic or metal. Cyprus comes up in the survey of distribution, with beads from Early and Middle Cypriote tombs and Late Cypriote vessels and ornaments from Enkomi, Kition and Idalion.

How it is organised

Chapter 1 covers faience technology and terminology. Chapter 2 surveys production and distribution from the end of the fifth millennium through the Bronze Age, region by region. Chapter 3 studies the Aegean objects one group at a time, in sections on Minoan faience, Greek mainland faience and Aegean island faience, with vessels, rhyta, figurines, plants and shells, plaques, inlays, jewellery and seals among the groups. Chapter 4 rearranges the Aegean material chronologically and then considers foreign relations, including contact with Europe. Chapter 5 gives the conclusions, and a select bibliography and index follow.

The evidence

Manufacture is described through silicate bodies, sodium carbonate binding agents, self-glazing, applied glaze, colourants and the methods for making beads, vessels, figurines and inlays. The book sets this against Egyptian records, Linear B tablets and cuneiform glass texts, including the term ku-wa-no and the proposed terms for faience and glass paste in Mesopotamian recipes. Compositional analysis by spectrochemical work, neutron activation and X-ray fluorescence is reviewed, and notes that technical analysis could help identify local characteristics and provenance.

The Aegean study draws on pieces from deposits, tombs, palaces, houses and workshops. The Knossos Temple Repository, Zakros, the Mycenaean Shaft Graves and the House of Shields at Mycenae receive particular attention.

The argument

Faience production and the forms it takes, the author argues, depend closely on access to luxury materials, above all lapis lazuli. Where those materials and the wealth from trading them are at hand, makers can develop faience as a medium in its own right; where access is limited, faience more often imitates expensive materials. From archaeological contexts, textual evidence and stylistic comparison she proposes locations for principal and subsidiary production centres, usually tied to political, cultic or mercantile activity.

For the Aegean she proposes that faience technology reached Crete from north Syria and north Mesopotamia, with production established at Knossos by MM I and a subsidiary centre at Zakros in LM I. Imports, local imitations and pieces of uncertain origin are kept apart. Aegean faience is characterised by polychrome work, naturalistic modelling, careful drawing and combination with shell, ivory and crystal, with the Knossos Town Mosaic and Temple Repository objects as the main examples. She reads the faience snake-handler figures as participants in a domestic cult, and the Town Mosaic as a set of decorative bands rather than a record of a military event.

She proposes a decline or disruption in Aegean faience production during the mid-second millennium, then limited production and a revival in mainland vessels at Mycenae in LH IIIb. She relates the changes to aesthetic, economic, geological and political circumstances and concludes that Aegean faience helped stimulate production in Britain and Central Europe. Its distribution in Europe indicates contact, but the evidence does not establish that faience, amber and tin moved through reciprocal or identical trade networks, and the routes and chronology of that contact remain uncertain.

Dating

The regional labels MM, LM and LH are used alongside calendar dates as stated in the book. The chronological arrangement begins with MM I and II material dated 2000–1700 B.C., includes the MM III and LM I assemblages, and ends with LH IIIb objects dated 1300–1250 B.C. Stylistic links between faience from the middle Shaft Graves, Crete and Thera lead her to a date around 1480–1470 B.C. for the end of LM Ib, while the Thera chronology and related destruction evidence are presented as disputed.