Metal Vessels and Pottery at the End of the Early Bronze Age

Some of the first discussions of the pottery of the Greek Early and Middle Bronze Age focused on the 'metallic' characteristics of certain classes, manifested particularly in details of their shape and in their surface treatment ¹. The classes discussed include those now known as the Kastri/Lefkandi I group of the late EB 2, and the Fine Gray Burnished (or proto-Minyan) ware of the EB 3. More recently, the functional equivalence of these two groups, and their common link to eating and drinking habits, have been stressed, and a 'genetic' relationship has been postulated between them ². It will be argued in this paper that a more genuine understanding of the introduction and development of these ceramic forms can be reached by recognising a greater role for metal prototypes (which due to the precious or perishable nature of the material do not survive in quantity), and by conceding that the pottery vessels which survive today were probably less important to the society that produced them than the substances which they contained and the values which they conveyed by imitating more precious vessels.

¹Forsdyke, E.J. 1914 'The pottery called Minyan ware' Journal of Hellenic Studies 34: 126-16; Childe, V.G. 1915 'On the date and origin of Minyan Ware' Journal of Hellenic Studies 35: 196-207.

²Rutter, J.B. 1979 Ceramic Change in the Aegean Early Bronze Age (Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Occasional Paper 5); Rutter, J.B. 1983 'Fine gray-burnished pottery of the Early Helladic III period: the ancestry of Gray Minyan' Hesperia 52: 327-355.