This archaeological collection comprises two complete vessels and 279 sherds of Minoan and Mycenaean pottery, that means from the time between 1575 and 1000 BC. This sherd material is exceptional in that it covers every Mycenaean and Late Minoan pottery phase and derives from Mycenae, Tiryns, Asine, Aegeira, Argos (Greek mainland) and Knossos (Crete).
This study of P. A. Mountjoy, an expert for Mycenaean Pottery, provides the reader with an extremely useful overview of shapes and motifs of the pottery of this time. An effort has been made to clarify the process of assignation of each sherd to date, shape and motif in an attempt to assist scholars and students working on similar museum and university collections.
The book presents the Mycenaean and Minoan material from the Frankfurt University collections, which comprises a large number of sherds and two complete vessels. The pieces are described chronologically, each piece being illustrated by a drawing and a photograph. In order to aid identification a complete example of each shape is also illustrated and, if the decorative motif on the sherd is difficult to identify, the motif is drawn out fully with the extant part on the sherd shown. The salient features of each shape represented are also described. Most of the pottery now has no provenance, but a few of the Mycenaean pieces can be assigned to Tiryns, Mycenae, Argos, Asine and Aegeira and some of the Minoan ones to Knossos.
The book is designed as a handbook for museum staff and students dealing with museum and university collections of Mycenaean pottery with particular reference to sherd material. It should be also useful for work in the field.
P. A. Mountjoy has worked on Mycenaean pottery in Greece, Egypt, Israel and Turkey. She is the author of many publications, both articles and books, the most important of which are: „Mycenaean Decorated Pottery: a Guide to Identification“ (1986), „Mycenaean Pottery: an Introduction“ (1993) and „Regional Mycenaean Decorated Pottery“ (1999).
Frankfurter Archäologische Schriften
herausgegeben von Hans-Markus von Kaenel, Jan-Waalke Meyer und Wulf Raeck
Vorwort