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The Excavation of the Kamares Cave in Crete

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

R. M. Dawkins  and
M. L. W. Laistner
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Extract

The Kamares cave on Mount Ida has been known now for more than twenty years as a prehistoric sanctuary, but its full excavation was only carried out in the summer of 1913 by a party from the British School, which thus resumed the work in Crete discontinued since Palaikastro gave way to Sparta in 1906. This early fame of the cave was due to the discovery in it in the early nineties of a number of vases and a few figurines, which Dr. Hazzidakis secured from the shepherd who had found them and placed in what was then the Museum of the Archaeological Syllogos at Candia. Some of the vases bear the marks of the rivets with which their peasant owner mended them.

The results of our excavation have so greatly supplemented this first instalment that the authorities of the Candia Museum have been able to do a great deal in the way of the reconstruction of vases, of which until now only small pieces were available, and these restorations have been put at our service for the photographs which accompany this report.

As soon as these vases were discovered they were at once recognised as belonging to a kind until then almost entirely unknown, and the name ‘Kamares,’ which was at once given to them, still remains current as a general description of that kind of Cretan pottery which has a black ground and white or polychrome ornament, although at the present stage of research rather as a convenient name for the technique than with any chronological meaning.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 19 , November 1913 , pp. 1 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1913

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References

page 2 note 1 Cretan Pictographs, p. 81 (J.H.S. xiv, 1895, p. 350).

page 2 note 2 Proceedings of Soc. of Antiquaries, 1895, 2nd series, xv, pp. 351.

page 2 note 3 Mon. Ant. vi, 1895, pp. 333, and Pls. IX, X, XI.

page 2 note 4 Published in the American Journal of Archaeology, v (1901), pp. 437 sqq.

page 7 note 1 Its modern name is ἀτίταμος or ἔρωντας the latter the modern Cretan equivalent for ἔρως

page 10 note 1 Cretan Pictographs, p. 114, Fig. 106 a.

page 11 note 1 For all the vases of the earlier find the Candia Museum numbers are added. The vases found in the excavation have not yet received museum numbers.

page 12 note 1 The foot on the vase in Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. IX, 8, is an error.

page 13 note 1 See Hall, E. H. in Boyd-Hawes, , Gournia, p. 57, Figs. 41, 42Google Scholar, and more fully in Trans. Univ. Pa. 1905, vol. i, part iii, pp. 195 sqq. For examples from Palaikastro, , see B.S.A. x, p. 199Google Scholar, Fig. 2, and xi, p. 271, Fig. 5.

page 14 note 1 Two sherds of this vase are given in Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. X, 21 and 21 a. The rest is newly found.

page 14 note 2 Only a part of one side of the vase is preserved. A sherd was found previously: it is published in Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. X, 16.

page 14 note 3 With the new fragments some half of this vase now exists. An old sherd shewing a piece of the lip and spout is figured in Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. IX, 7.

page 15 note 1 Both these belong to the same vase, which seems to have been a round-bodied mug, with a slightly flaring mouth. No. 13 is very badly drawn, and the suggestion that it is part of the bottom of a vase is completely wrong.

page 15 note 2 Already published by Mariani, in Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. IX, 8, 8aGoogle Scholar, but not very accurately, either in drawing or colour. In particular the red colour on the fishes is omitted, and a non-existent foot is added.

page 17 note 1 Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. X, 15.

page 17 note 2 For examples see B.S.A. ix, p. 305, Fig. 4, No. 2, Figs. 5 a, b.

page 18 note 1 An unpublished jug from Dr. Xanthoudides' excavation at Koumasa is the best example I can find of this. It has on its sides four representations of some object, of which the six rows of raised warts on it are clearly an actual feature.

page 20 note 1 Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. IX, 5 (printed upside down). Mariani took the bit of shell in the fragment for a fish.

page 20 note 2 Cf. the L.M. II vase from Phylakopi, in B.S.A. xvii, Pl. XI, No. 137.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 A similar spiral is seen at the mouth of the murex shells on a dark vase from Gournia of L.M. II date (Mus. No. 2296). Published in Boyd-Hawes, Gournia, Pl. J.

page 21 note 2 Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. IX, 10.

page 21 note 3 I have had occasion to study a great quantity of M.M. and L.M. I and II pottery at Palaikastro, and noticed that there these marks never shew themselves as early as M.M. II. A drawing of their appearance is given in J.H.S. xxiii, p. 249, Fig. 2; they are caused by cutting the vase off the wheel by placing a string round the base and tightening it, a practice I have seen used by a Japanese potter. With regard, however, to the dating of the vases of this class from the cave to M.M. II rather than to M.M. III, it should be remembered that east and central Crete may well differ in such a detail, and also that the M.M. II pottery of Palaikastro seems to belong very early in the period, whilst these vases must be late in it.

page 23 note 1 A sherd found at first is published in Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. IX, 1; the rest was found by us.

page 23 note 2 For examples see the vases from Vaphio and Phylakopi published by Bosanquet, in J.H.S. xiv, Pls. XI, XII.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 E.g. from Palaikastro in B.S.A. ix, p. 308, Fig. 8; also Hogarth, and Welsh, in J.H.S. xxi, P. 87 (D).Google Scholar

page 24 note 2 Seagar, , Explorations in the Island of Mochlos, Pls. I–VII, IX.Google Scholar

page 24 note 3 In the Candia Museum (No. 2997).

page 26 note 1 Published in B.S.A. xi, p. 281, Fig. 12b.

page 27 note 1 There is a solitary example from Palaikastro, (B.S.A. ix, p. 302, Fig. I, 14).Google Scholar The lids from H. Nikolaos are of a different shape but were used for a like purpose (ibid. p. 341, Figs. 1 and 2).

page 29 note 1 Cf. B.S.A. viii, p. 293, the last one in the lowest row.

page 31 note 1 Numismatique de l'Orient Latin, Pl. VIII, 10.

page 32 note 1 The figurines of the original find are only three, two oxen heads, and the body of what looks like a pig. They are published by Mariani, , Mon. Ant. vi, Pl. X, 20, 22, 24.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 J.H.S. xxi, p. 93.

page 33 note 2 At that time the distinction between Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I had hardly been drawn.

page 33 note 3 Published in J.H.S. xxi, p. 142.

page 34 note 1 L'antre de Psychro et le Diktaion Antron, by Toutain, J., in the Revue de l'histoire et des Religions, lxivGoogle Scholar, No. 3, Nov.-Dec.