Submycenaean pottery is a style of

ancient Greek pottery Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

. It is transitional between the preceding

Mycenaean pottery Mycenaean pottery is the pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean period in Ancient Greece. It encompassed a variety of styles and forms including the stirrup jar. The term "Mycenaean" comes from the site Mycenae, and was first applied by ...

and the subsequent styles of

Greek vase painting Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

, especially the

Protogeometric style The Protogeometric style (or "Proto-Geometric") is a style of Ancient Greek pottery led by Athens produced between roughly 1030 and 900 BCE, in the first period of the Greek Dark Ages. After the collapse of the Mycenaean- Minoan Palace culture ...

. The vases date to between 1030 and 1000 BC. Submycenaean pottery is not very well researched, as only few sites from the period have been discovered so far. The style was first recognised in 1939 by

Wilhelm Kraiker Wilhelm Kraiker (4 August 1899 – 24 April 1987) was a German classical archaeologist. Life Born in Frankfurt, in 1927 Kraiker received his doctorate at Heidelberg University under Ludwig Curtius. In 1928/29 he received a , afterwards he was as ...

and Karl Kübler, based on finds from the

Kerameikos Kerameikos (, ) also known by its Latinized form Ceramicus, is an area of Athens, Greece, located to the northwest of the Acropolis, which includes an extensive area both within and outside the ancient city walls, on both sides of the Dipylon Ga ...

and Pompeion cemeteries in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

and on Salamis. The existence of the style remained disputed among archaeologists until later discoveries in

Mycenae Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. Th ...

clearly showed the existence of separate Late Mycenaean and Submycenaean

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

. Submycenaean pottery occurs primarily in contexts such as

inhumation Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

s and stone-built

cist A cist ( or ; also kist ; from grc-gre, κίστη, Middle Welsh ''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East ...

graves. Find locations are widely distributed, suggesting a settlement pattern of hamlets and villages. Apart from the sites mentioned above, Submycenaean pottery is known from locations such as

Corinth Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...

Asine Asine (; grc, Ἀσίνη) was an ancient Greek city of ancient Argolis, located on the coast. It is mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue of Ships in the ''Iliad'' as one of the places subject to Diomedes, king of Argos. It is said to have bee ...

Kalapodi Kalapodi ( el, Καλαπόδι) is a modern Greek village in the Lokroi municipality, Phthiotis, Central Greece. Lokroi straddles the pass leading over the low mountains between the Bay of Atalantis in the Gulf of Euboea to the plains of Boeotia ...

Lefkandi Lefkandi () is a coastal village on the island of Euboea, Greece. Archaeological finds attest to a settlement on the promontory locally known as Xeropolis, while several associated cemeteries have been identified nearby. The settlement site is loca ...

and

Tiryns Tiryns or (Ancient Greek: Τίρυνς; Modern Greek: Τίρυνθα) is a Mycenaean archaeological site in Argolis in the Peloponnese, and the location from which the mythical hero Heracles performed his Twelve Labours. It lies south of Myce ...

. The quality of the vases varies widely. Only few shapes were produced, especially stirrup jars with a pierced shoulder,

belly amphora An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

e and

neck amphora An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

e, ''

lekythoi A lekythos (plural lekythoi) is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil (Greek λήκυθος), especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel, and is thus a narrow type of jug, with no po ...

'' as well as jars, some with trefoil-shaped mouths. By the end of the Submycenaean period, the stirrup jar was replaced by the ''lekythos''. Submycenaean decoration is rather simple, the hand-painted motifs are limited to horizontal or vertical wavy lines, single or double hatched and overlapping triangles, as well as single or multiple concentric semicircles. The shoulders of ''lekythoi'', amphorae and stirrup jars bore ornamental decoration. Amphorae, '' amphoriskoi'' and jugs were usually painted with one or several thick wavy lines. In general, the style was much shorter and less carefully made than the previous types of pottery, leading one art historian to describe it as "rather unloveable".

Notes

References

Thomas Mannack Thomas Mannack (born in 1958) is a German classical archaeologist. Mannack obtained his Doctorate in 1992 with at the University of Kiel. The thema of his dissertation was ''Beazleys spätere und späteste Manieristen''. He is a specialist in ...

: ''Griechische Vasenmalerei. Eine Einführung''. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, p. 66f. .

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Further reading