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Appendix Iv: Potmarks, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

I. Potmarks from the Limassol area tombs The excavation of any Late Cypriote site settlement, tomb, shipwreck usually yields pottery marked with incised, impressed, or painted signs. The collection of marked pottery presented here is significant especially because it fills in the heretofore geographic lacuna between the substantial assemblages of Late Cypriote potmarks discovered in the Kouris (Smith 2012) and Vasilikos (E. Masson 1989; Cadogan, Driessen, and Ferrara 2009, 145) River Valleys. Smith has demonstrated how much marked pottery, considered in the context of other indications of administrative control, can reveal about the administrative, economic, and political organization of a …

Vases Marked For Exchange: The Not-So-Special Case Of Pictorial Pottery, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

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 circumstances 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 associated 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 Mycenaean pottery.

The Many Ways Between Late Bronze Age Aegeans And Levants, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Interactions between the "Aegean" and "Levant" cannot be discussed in monolithic terms. The physical realities of sea travel, the vocabulary and accounts preserved in texts, and the objects found in foreign earth and under the seas point to many routes among the diverse communities that inhabited the eastern Mediterranean littoral in the Late Bronze Age, and give hints of the different peoples forging the connections. They interacted in a multiplicity of ways, their relationships shifting through time. Focusing in on the specifics of interactions reveals complexities that should be the basis for alternative ways of classifying interactions across the Aegean …

Appendix K: Trireme Warfare In Xenophon’S Hellenika, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

§1. The disaster at Syracuse (415-413) marked the effective end of Athenian naval supremacy. She would rebuild her fleets and continue to be a force, but Xenophon's account of the following half century tells of a hard-fought struggle among many contenders to dominate the Aegean Sea. Although in the ancient Mediterranean world geography and tradition favored islands and coastal cities as emergent sea powers, dominance could not be achieved without also having access to the vital resources of timber, manpower, and plenty of revenue. Thus the Persian king Artaxerxes and Jason of Pherai posed alarming threats to the traditional masters …

Appendix I: A Painted Mark On A Mycenaean Krater Base From Hala Sultan Tekke, T. 1, Mla 1173, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

No abstract provided.

The Cypriot Ceramic Cargo Of The Uluburun Shipwreck, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

The ship that sank at Uluburun was carrying about 130 pieces of Cypriot pottery in its cargo, mostly fine bowls and juglets but also lamps and wall brackets. Some coarse-ware bowls, pitchers, kraters, and the pithoi may also have been intended as cargo. This ceramic shipment is diverse in substance and unassuming in quality. By tracing how the Cypriot vases spilled and broke apart during the shipwreck, it has been possible to determine that they were originally packed into three pithoi for transport. The odd assortment of vases suggests that this cargo was not acquired at a manufacturing center. More …

Cypriots In The Mycenaean Aegean, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Many different types of evidence provide clues to the nature of commercial exchange among the regions of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. I approach this topic through the study of marks which were incised or painted on pottery traded between the Near East and the Aegean. Thanks to the kindness of many excavators and museum officials in Cyprus and Greece, I have been able to examine firsthand much of the marked pottery found in those regions.

Die Zyprische Keramik Aus Dem Schiffswrack Von Uluburun, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Mehr als 150 zyprische Gefäße Öllampen und Vorratsbehälter (Pithoi) wurden aus dem Schiff herausgeschleudert und auf dem Meeresgrund zerschmettert, als dieses Schiff in der Spätbronzezeit bei Uluburun unterging. Zyprische Keramik zählt zu den bekannten Exportprodukten der Spätbronzezeit. Sie wurde in zahlreichen Siedlungen des östlichen Mittelmeerraums angetroffen, einschließlich Sardiniens als westlichstem Punkt. Jedoch gibt die Entdeckung dieser Keramik in entlegenen Siedlungen Anlass zur Überlegung, wohin, in welchen Mengen und zu welchem Zweck sie exportiert wurde. Folgende Fragen wären zu beantworten: War dieser Exportartikel von Angebot und Nachfrage abhängig? Stellt diese Keramik ein Mittel im Geschenkeaustausch dar? Wurde sie durch private oder …

Fine Tuning: An Analysis Of Bronze Age Potmarks As Clues To Maritime Trade, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

One of many puzzling questions facing archaeologists working in the eastern Mediterranean deals with the organization of trade during the Late Bronze Age (LBA). This is the time of the New Kingdom-the period of Tutankhamun and Ramses—in Egypt, the Hittite empire in Anatolia and parts of the Near East, and the age of the heroes of the Trojan war. Palace archives, treaties inscribed on public monuments, and murals painted on walls testify to extensive economic ties between these powers. Archaeological excavations also provide a glimpse of the types and quantities of trade-items and their distribution. These sources give some indication …

The Ship Of Saint Paul: Historical Background, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

In C.E. 62, Saint Paul left Caesarea for Italy. Sailing in a vessel of unknown type, he reached Myra on the southern coast of Turkey, where he boarded another ship for the second leg of his trip. Acts 27:6-28:16 records subsequent events: the voyage to Crete made difficult by unusual autumnal winds; an attempt to find a Cretan harbor in which to stay the winter; and finally the tempest that drove the ship across the Adriatic and caused it to wreck on the island of Melita (Malta). This story is more than a tale of adventure. From the perspective of …

CéRamiques MycéNiennes D'Ougarit, Marguerite Yon, Vassos Karageorghis, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Les fouilles menées depuis 1929 par la mission française de Ras Shamra-Ougarit sur la côte de Syrie, et qui se poursuivent à ce jour, ont livre une quantité considérable de céramique de type mycénien, qui constitue dans la dernière phase de l'Age du Bronze un des fossiles directeurs les plus significatifs. Les objets mycéniens d'Ougarit déjà publiés representaient la proportion la plus importante du repertoire connu à travers tout le Proche-Orient; mais une partie restait inédite, comprenant notamment des échantillons d'étude rapportés au Louvre et les découvertes des campagnes récentes. Le présent volume fait connaître près de quatre cents nouveaux …

Appendix S: Trireme Warfare In Herodotus, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

§1. Herodotus describes a vigorous era in the history of the maritime traffic and warfare in the Mediterranean. Greek and Phoenician colonies anchored far-flung trading networks north to the Black Sea and west along the African and European coasts to Spain and even beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. Sea lanes had to be policed, colonies protected, parochial navies developed and increased. Furthermore, naval strength, always a prerogative of coastal and island states, became an important factor in the expanding domains of inland powers such as Sparta and Persia. The jostling of all these escalating commercial and political interests in the …

Cypriot Marks On Mycenaean Pottery, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Most signs incised into Late Helladic/Late Minoan III pottery are related in form and method of application, as well as the types of vessels to which they are applied and the chronological range and distribution of those vessels. The signs are almost always incised after firing, generally into the handles of large transport/storage vessels : stirrup jars (both coarse and fine-ware varieties) or a particular piriform jar shape (FS 36). With few exceptions, the Aegean vessels with incised marks which can be closely dated by either ceramic typology or stratigraphical context fall within LH IIIA-B; of those which can be …

How And Why Potmarks Matter, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Potmarks lie in a no-man's land, not quite within the usual parameters of ceramic studies, not usually a concern for epigraphists. Although many excavations have yielded some potmarks, they are not a regular feature of publication. But potmarks found in Bronze Age contexts in Cyprus occupy an unusual position in the archaeology of the Bronze Age Mediterranean: they are regularly noticed and published.

The Pasp Data Base For The Use Of Scripts On Cyprus, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

No abstract provided.

The Bureaucracy Of Trade In The Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Imported objects, royal and personal archives stacked with commercial documents, and shipwrecked cargoes provide evidence for widespread contact and exchange in the Late Bronze Age (LB) eastern Mediterranean. Attempts to reconstruct the patterns and motives for this trade usually concentrate on studies of the documents and the trade items themselves. One category of evidence that, although frequently noted, has not been subjected to rigorous examination, is the secondary marks with which objects-ingots and pottery, for example-were labelled in the course of exchange. Signs incised or painted on pottery are a particularly good source of information, since the widely-exported ceramics have …

Cypriots To The West? The Evidence Of Their Potmarks, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Three amphora handles (Fig. 1), of Mycenaean type, bear the only possible traces of Cypriot writing found in Bronze Age Italy, and they are the only known possible direct traces of Cypriot participation in trade with the western Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age. In this paper, I proceed first with a brief description of the marked handles and their provenience; second, I illustrate their Cypriot associations; and finally I discuss possible implications of this identification.

Die Kyprominoische Schrift: Texte Und Kontexte, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Vor 199 Jahren veröffentlichte Josef von Hammer die erste moderne Entdeckung einer in die Steinwand eines Grabes im antiken Paphos (Kouklia) eingemeißelten kyprisch-syllabischen Inschrift. Die weiteren Funde mit dieser Schrift versehener Objekte häuften sich rapide und 1852 publizierte Honoré Albert de Luynes die erste wissenschaftliche Studie der kyprischen Schriften, 1869 wurde in Dhali eine Bilingue mit der lokalen Schrift und Phönizisch gefunden. Sie erwies sich als Schlüssel zur Entzifferung.

Appendix G: Trireme Warfare In Thucydides, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

§1. Ships, sea battles, and naval policy are key features in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides—who served as a general and commanded a squadron of triremes himself (4.104.4-5; 4.106.3)—clearly viewed naval power as the key to supremacy in the Aegean (1.15); Athens' rise to empire and fall from glory was inextricably bound with her fortunes at sea.

Cape Gelidonya, Nicolle Hirschfeld, George Bass, Cemal Pulak, Harun Özdaş

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

In early August 2010, INA Director Danielle Feeney, stalwart supporter of so many INA projects, dropped anchor in the small seaside village of Adrasan and picked up the four surviving members of the 1960 expedition to Gelidonya: George and Ann Bass, Claude Duthuit, and Waldemar Illing. Feeney's yacht, Andrea, brought the reunited team to the sliver of a beach that was home during the long, hot summer a half century earlier, when it was demonstrated that underwater discovery could be archaeology. The following day, Andrea returned again and this time George, Claude, and Wlady dove on the wreck site, accompanied …

The Potmarks From Troy Vi-Vii In The Berlin Schliemann Collection, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

More than a century of excavations on and around the citadel of Troy have uncovered a total of only fifteen Late Bronze Age (LB) ceramic vases with non-decorative mark(s) incised into their rim, handle, belly or base. Surely potmarks have been Overlooked or lost in the course of the tremendous labors of digging and sorting. On the other hand, in the absence of the discovery of archives, the excavators of Troy have been on the look-out for signs of writing of the briefest sort on the humblest kinds of objects. For example, already the first volume of Schliemann's publications is …

Cypriot Pottery, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

At least 3 of the 10 pithoi (large ceramic transport containers) stowed on the ship that sank at Uluburun contained Cypriot pottery: Bucchero jugs, lug-handled bowls, milk bowls, Base Ring bowls and a single juglet, White Shaved juglets, lamps, and wall brackets—about 140 pieces in total, excluding the pithoi. The Uluburun shipment and the ceramic cargo jettisoned off Point Iria on the Greek mainland a century later are the only extant excavated direct archaeological evidence for the transport of pottery in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. These examples of ceramics-in-transport are highly significant for what they tell …

Marks And Makers: Appearance, Distribution And Function Of Middle And Late Helladic Manufacturers’ Marks On Aeginetan Pottery, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

In 1891, Petrie noted “strange signs” scratched on “Aegean” pottery recovered from 12th Dynasty rubbish heaps at Kahun (Egypt). Within the same decade, the excavators at Phylakopi uncovered several hundred marked vases. Their 1904 publication briefly commented upon the vessels and the location of the marks, but the focus of discussion was on their possible function(s) and their linguistic significance, based solely on an analysis of the marks themselves. Comparison of the Melian potmarks with the symbols in Minoan writing led to a theory of a pan-Aegean racial and language continuity from the Neolithic period through Minoan Crete. Another half …

Cypro-Minoan, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

There are approximately two hundred identified Cypro-Minoan inscriptions (excluding potmarks). Most are very short (one or two sequences totaling fewer than ten signs). They are impressed, incised, or painted on a variety of objects and materials in an assortment of lengths and formats and are found in a diversity of contexts widely dispersed across the island of Cyprus and at Ras Shamra-Ugarit on the mainland. They span the entire Late Bronze Age (16th-11th centuries BC) and perhaps continue into the very early Iron Age. The earliest discoveries were made at the end of the 19th century; most recently, Cypro-Minoan has …

Marked Objects From Apliki Karamallos, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

The study of Cypriot Late Bronze Age (LBA) writing had reached one of its apogees in the summer of 1939, when Joan du Plat Taylor undertook excavations at Apliki Karamallos. Publication of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition's reports and new discoveries by Schaeffer at Enkomi and the Americans at Kourion Bamboula had shrugged off the mantle of dormancy imposed by the first World War; by the mid '30's, scholarship on the origins and uses of writing on LBA Cyprus was in full swing. Evans (1935), Persson (1932 and 1937), and Schaeffer (1936) published important studies, and Casson (1937 and 1939) and …

Signs Of Writing? Red Lustrous Wheelmade Vases And Ashkelon Amphorae, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

One important question about Bronze Age potmarks is whether they are signs of writing. An affirmative answer has significant implications for our understanding of how widely a script was used within and between communities. This essay discusses two instances for which the claim of writing on ceramics has been made: Red Lustrous Wheelmade (RLWM) pottery and the “inscriptions” found at Ashkelon. In both cases, the question is whether the marks incised into these vases are to be identified as signs of the Cypro-Minoan script. The answer is important in the first instance for our understanding of the diversity and specialization …

Ways Of Exchange In The Lba Eastern Mediterranean: The Evidence Of Marked Vases, Nicolle Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Thousands of Late Bronze Age vases were traded among the nations of the eastern Mediterranean littoral. At least 900 still preserve marks incised or painted on their handles, bases or bodies. At first sight, the variety of mark-types, the range of vases marked, and the wide dispersal of the marked vessels yields an impression of jumble. But on closer inspection, patterns of marking begin to become evident. The fact that patterns do appear lends credence to the task of trying to discover what those marks might mean.

Eastwards Via Cyprus? The Marked Mycenaean Pottery Of Enkomi, Ugarit And Tell Abu Hawam, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Based on her study of distribution patterns, Vronwy Hankey suggested that Cyprus or Cypriots played some role in the trade of Mycenaean pottery eastwards to the Levant. She also noted that some of the Mycenaean pottery which reached both Cyprus and the Near East carried marks incised on handles or painted on bases. This paper examines the possible relationships between the marks, Mycenaean pottery, Cyprus, and the trade in Late Bronze Age ceramics. Special reference is made to the evidence from the sites of Enkomi, Ugarit, and Tell Abu Hawam.

À partir de son étude sur les schémas de répartition, …

The Cypro-Minoan Corpus Project Wins Best Of Show Award, Joanna S. Smith, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

The tum of the millennium also marks a century of study of the undeciphered Late Bronze Age script of Cyprus, Cypro-Minoan. In 1909, Sir Arthur Evans labeled it "Cypro-Minoan" based on its visual similarity to the linear scripts he found at Knossos on Crete. We began to discuss the need for a detailed corpus of Cypro-Minoan a decade ago when we both attended a seminar on ancient Cypriot writing conducted by Thomas G. Palaima of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP) at the University of Texas at Austin. We went on separately to pursue specific problems in the …

Cyprus, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Nicolle E Hirshfeld

Strabo described Cyprus as “second to none of the islands of the Mediterranean: it is rich in wine and oil, produces grain in abundance and possesses extensive copper mines.…” (14.6.5). Geographical proximity placed Cyprus within the orbit of the Levant; currents and winds situated the island in the flow of peoples and ideas between the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. But at the same time, Cyprus’ insularity and large size fostered idiosyncratic developments. This tension—between native and imported ideas, and invention in a middle ground—informs studies of ancient Cyprus.