The superiority of these Cretan vases to all contemporary ceramic output showed itself in a vigorous export. The Egyptian finds of this ware give as a date the XVIII dynasty, approximately 1500 B.C., a date confirmed by some Egyptian objects found in Crete. Cretan vases were also exported in quantities to Melos and Thera: there the native industry loses itself in imperfect imitations of this imported ware. The Cretan civilization also enters the Greek mainland, especially the Argolid. The shaft graves of Mycenae ([p. 7]), from which the Late Minoan civilization transplanted to the mainland has been named ‘Mycenean,’
PLATE VII.
Figs. 12 & 13. AMPHORÆ OF THE PALACE STYLE FROM KNOSSOS.
are the oldest instance of this fact. The imported vases of the six graves are distributed over the whole of the first Late Minoan (early Mycenean) period, containing late specimens of Kamares style and early specimens of the Palace style: but the bulk of the ‘varnish’ vases found on the mainland belong to the succeeding period.
The second Late Minoan period of vase production in Crete, the so-called Palace style (Figs. [12] and [13]) is not so sharply divided from the first, as the latter is from the Kamares style. Both phases are connected by several transitional forms and run parallel for a time. An important difference is that the last traces of the Kamares technique (the imposition of white, red and orange on a black ground) disappear: there is simply painting in black on light clay (Mycenean technique). The decoration neglects the neck and foot of the vessel and emphasizes the shoulder, particularly with the characteristic half-branches. The animated reproductions of nature in the preceding style are treated in a fanciful way; they become fixed and are changed into ornaments and patterns for filling; the significant unity of the design is interrupted by foreign elements; the marine and plant ornamentation now never covers the whole vase but retires into a single band. In short, the naturalistic style gives place to a tectonic style, the representations are not the chief thing aimed at, which is the filling of the space. Beside the ornaments produced by the schematizing of living natural forms come new ones, which often look like a borrowing of architectural forms; moreover, the juxtaposition and combination of the ornaments show the same spirit, and also the emphasis now laid on the shape of the vase, in which the structure and the swinging contour reach their highest form of elegance, as can be seen most plainly in the amphorae.
This art had a wide influence outside Crete. To the beginning of the period, the transition from the first to the second Late Minoan style, belong many mainland finds, especially from domed tombs, in Peloponnese (Vaphio, Argos, Mycenae, Old Pylos), in Attica (Athens, Thorikos, Spata), in Boeotia (Thebes, Orchomenos) and in Thessaly (Volo). The finds continue during the period of the developed Palace style. The majority of these ‘varnish’ vases seem not to have been imported from Crete but made by Cretan artizans in the country. The Mycenean local princes, who from their lofty citadels controlled the surrounding country, surrounded themselves more and more with the splendour of this southern civilization, ordered weapons, ornaments, precious vases from Crete, used them in life, gave them to the dead in graves; they also took into their service foreign artists, and gave employment to Cretan masons, painters and potters.