Vases Marked for Exchange: The Not-So-Special Case of Pictorial Pottery

Large, bold marks are painted or incised on the handles or bases of thirty-seven pictorial vases. These same kinds of marks and same patterns of marking are found on non-pictorial Mycenaean pottery. In general, marks on Mycenaean pottery are rare and the circum­ stances of their use are not yet fully understood. It is clear that they are associated with Cyprus, and it is most likely that they are asso­ ciated with Cypriot traders. The marks do indicate that pictorial vases were handled through the same channels and documented in the same manner as the trade in linear and pattern-decorated Myce­ naean pottery.* It is the decorated panels of the pictorial vases which catch the modem eye, and one presumes that this was true also in antiquity. Modem studies have tended to set vases with pic­ torial decoration apart, treating them as a special and sepa­ rate class of pottery. Was it the same in the Late Bronze Age? To what extent were pictorial representations the de­ fining elements of their vases? Was a jug with painted bulls on its shoulders first and foremost one of "those illustrated vases" in the same way that the cup in grandma's cupboard was first a piece of Wedgewood, and second a container for tea? Or was the jug with painted bulls simply "the fancy jug", i.e. primarily a container, albeit a fancy one? How spe­ cial were these pictorial vases? And were they the same · kind of special at their place of manufacture and their place of ultimate use, hence discovery? Attempts to answer such questions have traditionally cen­ tered on iconography as indication of how these vases were viewed in antiquity.1 To a large extent, iconography has se­ duced the vases' modem examiners away from the con­ sideration of pictorial vases within the general context of Mycenaean pottery production and distribution. But we do need to know to what extent and in what ways-beyond iconography-pictorial vases were the same or different from their plainer counterparts. Do any vase shapes carry exclusively pictorial decoration? What is the relative fre­ quency of pictorial decoration on certain shapes? In what kinds of contexts have pictorial vases been found in and outside of mainland Greece?2 This paper begins to explore the wider context of picto­ rial vases by examining one feature common to pictorial and non-pictorial Mycenaean vases: marks boldly painted and incised under the bases and into the handles of decor­ ated Mycenaean pottery. MARKS ON MYCENAEAN VASES Of the thousand-plus extant Mycenaean pictorial vases, thirty-seven are marked.3 Twenty-five vases carry painted marks, eleven bear incised marks, and one4 vase has both. Their dates range from LH IliA 1 to the LH IIIB/C transi-­ tion; most (thirty) are dated, on stylistic grounds, to LH TIIB.5 A single example comes from mainland Greece, four were found in the region of Ugarit, and all the rest were ex­ cavated in Cyprus. Marked pictorial vases include a range of shapes-especially kraters, but also jugs, piriform jars, a stirrup jar, and even a kylix. The marks, composed of one or two signs, cannot be read and thus interpretation of their function depends on observing the patterns of their occur­ rence. Thirty-seven marked vases from the entire corpus of pic*Note: This paper discusses all marked pictorial vases known as of December 1999. 1 A classic example is Karageorghis 1958b. A more comprehensive approach can be seen in Steel1998, where iconography is only one element of several factors (vessel type, repairs, depositional con­ text, local pottery types) considered in assessing the use of Myce­ naean pottery in Cyprus. Two further publications that deal comprehensively with the use of imported pictorial pottery have appeared since the submission of this paper: van Wijngaarden 2001 [non vidi] and Steel 1999; Steel's arguments provide a thought-provoking counterpart and her con­ clusions fundamentally disagree with the main thesis of this paper. A third paper is of larger compass, but includes a rebuttal to Steel's arguments: Sherratt 1999, 163-205, esp. 188 n. 62. 2 See Steel1998 and 1999; van Wijngaarden 1999b and 2001. 3 The catalogue of marked Mycenaean pottery at the end of this ar­ ticle includes all known examples. A ll numbers in this text refer to that list. 4 Perhaps two, if there really are traces of a painted mark under the base of no. 29. 5 IIIA1-2 vases; 11IA2-2; 11IA2/B1; IIIB116 ; 11IB2 -7; IliB 6; IIIB /C-2; no date1. 84 Nicolle Hirschfeld torial vases discovered is a very small percentage. This is not unusual. Mycenaean vases in general are very rarely marked. Of the several tens of thousands of Mycenaean vases and vase fragments which have been recorded, fewer than five hundred marks are known: approximately 270 in­ cised marks, 200 painted marks. The point to be made here is that, for whatever reasons Mycenaean vases were some­ times marked, pictorial vases were no different: they were only infrequently marked. INCISED VS. PAINTED MARKS The division between painted and incised marks is more than a technical differentiation. It corresponds, also, to dif­ ferent applications within the corpus of Mycenaean pottery. Incised marks almost always are found on handles, and those handles almost always belong to large transport or storage jars: coarse-ware stirrup jars, large fine-ware stirrup jars, and the larger varieties of piriform jars. The marks are large in scale a�d immediately visible on a standing vase. Painted marks, on the other hand, are usually found under bases, occasionally on the lower body or inside a vase. They are not visible on a vessel set at stance, and most must have been made with the vase held upside down or lying on its side. Painted marks occur on a wide range of shapes: small decorated varieties of stirrup jars and piriform jars, ala­ bastra, a tremendous variety of open vases, and even conical and zoomorphic rhyta, but not on storage/transport jars. Painted and incised marks are almost (but not quite) mutu­ ally exclusive both in terms of the kinds of Mycenaean vases on which they appear, and their placement on those vases. MARKED PICTORIAL UN-EXCEPTIONAL Exceptions are rare. Only about two dozen (of almost five hundred) marked Mycenaean vases carry the "wrong" kind of mark or have a mark put in the "wrong" place, and per­ haps six vases carry both kinds of marks. Several of the un­ usually marked vases are pictorial. Exceptions are ultimately a fascinating study, for in showing how rules can be "bent", they tell us something about the rules themselves. The question relevant to this pa­ per is whether there is any significant correlation between pictorial decoration and vases whose marks do not fit the · usual patterns (of type and/or placement on the vase). A positive answer might suggest that pictorial vases were treated somehow specially, and further study of the reasons for marking could illuminate in what way the vases were special. Conversely, a negative answer would simply tell us that the same reasons governed the marking of pictorial and non-pictorial vases. The single most exceptionally marked pictorial vase is the krater decorated with stags from Enkomi (no. 1; cf. cata­ logue below). This krater bears a painted mark under its base, and a different mark incised on its handle. The individual marks are not unusual in type or position on the vase, but the combination of these two kinds of marks on the same vase is found on only three, possibly five, other vases: �a) Torus base (amphoroid? open? krater) from Ras Shamra, upper body not preserved; two marks under the base, one painted and one incised.6 The marks overlap (it cannot be clearly determined which was made first) and may be repe­ titions of the same sign. (b) Fragment of a vertical strap handle (from a krater?), from Enkomi; one incised mark, one painted mark. 7 (c) Piriform jar with scale decoration from Tiryns; an in­ cised mark on one handle, a painted mark on another.8 (d) Amphoroid krater with pictorial decoration (bulls), from Enkomi (no. 29); incised marks on base and handle, per­ haps a painted mark under the base. (e) Open krater (FS 7) with curve-stemmed spirals from Cy­ prus; incised mark on one handle, perhaps a painted mark under the base.9 These few Mycenaean vases with double markings have nothing else in common. Certainly there is no basis for sug­ gesting that the pictorial decoration of no. 1 is reason for its special marking. Other pictorial vases are unusual in the placement of the mark or the type of vase marked. But examination will show that no link can be made between irregularities in marking and the pictorial decoration of the vases. Table 1 illustrates all twenty-six extant painted marks on Mycenaean pictorial pottery. It can be seen that painted marks and their placement on pictorial vases mostly follow the standard practice. The marks are found on the usual range of vases, i.e. there are non-pictorial comparanda with painted marks for each of these shapes. The marks are found in the usual places: under bases of twenty vases, on the lower bodies of two amphoroid kraters, and in the interior of two other amphoroid kraters. In addition to the stag krater (no. 1), whose painted mark is not odd in and of itself, two pictorial vases with painted marks are unusual: One would expect the large stirrup jar from Klavdhia (no. 21) to carry an incised rather than a painted mark. And the reported oc­ currence of a painted mark on the handle, repeating the mark painted under the base, of a chariot krater from Ras ibn Hani (no. 4) is without parallel. These two marks are un­ usual, and I can provide no satisfactory explanation. But twenty-four (of twenty-six) pictorial vases with painted marks conform to the marking patterns of non-pictorial Mycenaean vases, and on this basis one can postulate that the same reasons governed the marking of pictorial and non-pictorial vases with large painted signs. The situation is not so straightforward in the case of the incised marks. Table 2 illustrates all known (twelve) picto­ rial vases with incised marks. Only the two piriform jars 6 Louvre 80 AO 241!300: Yon, Karageorghis & Hirschfeld 2000, (no. 2) 75, 186-187, 189. 7 Catling 1988, 326, no. 5, 327 fig. 1:5, pl. XLIV:5. 8 Tiryns 27985: Olivier 1988, (nos. 9-10) 255, 257, fig. 4. 9 CM A 1548: CVA Cyprus Museum 1, pl. 16:1-2 (Cyprus 1, pl. 16). Vases markedfor exchange 85 with incised handles fit the expected patterns of marking. The other incised marks appear either in the wrong places (bases) or on the wrong shapes (jugs and kraters). This would at first glance seem to indicate that the usual reasons for incising marks did not apply to pictorial vases, i.e. the pictorial vases were somehow special. A single circumstance, unrelated to the pictorial nature of the vases, accounts for the incised marks on five vases: the two jugs (nos. 31 and 32), two ring-based kraters (nos. 34 and 35), and the amphoroid krater no. 29. All these vases come from a single tomb (Enkomi tomb 18, excavated by the Swedish Cyprus expedition). They also all carry one of two sets of marks that appear with some regularity on six­ teen pictorial and non-pictorial vases found in this context. The purpose of the marks remains uncertain.10 But two ob­ servations make it clear that that purpose operated regard­ less of pictorial decoration. First, each of the two groups of pottery identified by a recurring sign group is not limited to pictorial vases, but also includes non-pictorial pots. Second, unmarked pictorial vases were also found in this same tomb deposit. Thus, marks were neither limited to nor inclusive of all the pictorial pottery. The common context possibly holds a clue to the unusually-incised pictorial vases from Swedish tomb 18. Their pictorial decoration does not. Excluding the two piriform jars whose incised marks fol­ low convention and the five vases from Enkomi tomb 18, we are left with five vases whose incised marks do not fit the general patterns of markings on Mycenaean vases: three amphoroid kraters (nos. 27, 28, and 30) and two ring-based kraters (no. 1, with incised handle and painted base, and no. 33). We would expect all these non-storage, non-transport vases to be marked only by means of paint under their bases. Indeed, as documented in Table 1, kraters comprise the majority of the corpus of pictorial vases with painted marks. The question is whether the five kraters with incised marks are simply deviations of the standard marking pro­ cess, or whether they show that pictorial kraters-unlike all other Mycenaean vessel types-were subject to both (painted and incised) marking processes. Are the incised and painted marks evidence that the pictorial kraters were different and special? The answer is a qualified yes. The qualification is that it is not the pictorial nature of the kraters that made them spe­ cial, but the vase typeY Fifty-eight marked kraters are known: many pictorial, eight non-pictorial, and the rest too fragmentary to determine the decorative scheme. The eight non-pictorial marked kraters, although few in number, also exhibit a mixture of mark types (Table a). Kraters do not neatly fit into any marking category. These large, fancy vases, whether pictorial or not, were different from all other vase types in that they alone were not consist­ ently segregated into the separate procedures or circulation patterns which resulted in either painted or incised marks. It is not the pictorial kraters which were unique. It wa§. the krater vase type which was special. The kraters, by virtue of their shape-not their manner of decoration---crossed the boundaries of marking norms. But otherwise pictorial vases were marked according to the marking practices usually associated with their respective Table a. Marked kraters: Painted Incised Painted & Totals' FS 7-8,53-55,281-282 marks marks incised Pictorial 19 + 1? 7 1 (+1 ?) 27 +? Non-pictorial 5 3 (1?) 8 Decoration not preserved 11 7 2 20 All marked kraters 35 + 1? 17 3 (+ 2?) 55+ 1? ' Numbers in parentheses represent a vase already recorded in a dif­ ferent column. shapes. Pictorial vases were not marked any differently than their non-pictorial counterparts. So the question becomes a matter of defining not in what ways pictorial vases were ex­ ceptional but rather what the marks tell us about the ways in which pictorial vases were quite ordinary.