Two points claim our attention in the first instance: (1) that in point of technique the Cypriote finds fall absolutely into line with those in other parts of the Mycenaean world; (2) that the range of subjects depicted on the vases found in Cyprus is wider and in a measure more developed than elsewhere. To what extent we may be permitted, bearing both facts in mind, to predicate a local fabric of Mycenaean pottery in Cyprus, must for the present remain an open question; at the same time it seems extremely probable that the larger vases, which it will be necessary to discuss in detail, are, if not of local manufacture, at all events a fabric made specially for exportation to Cyprus, as we shall see was the case with a later variety of black-figured Attic ware.
The peculiarity of the Cypriote-Mycenaean pottery is that whereas on other sites the decoration is confined to linear ornaments, and animal or vegetable subjects drawn almost exclusively from the aquatic world (such as cuttle-fish, shell-fish, or seaweed), in Cyprus we find represented not only animals, such as bulls, deer, goats, and dogs, but even human figures, both male and female, and monsters such as Sphinxes and Gryphons. Having regard to what M. Pottier[[839]] calls the law of the hierarchie des genres, it does not seem impossible that this may imply a late survival of Mycenaean art in Cyprus, and although this view has been hitherto strongly contested in certain quarters, it finds support from other evidence obtained in recent excavations. The whole chronology of Cypriote pottery is still in a very unsettled state, and until it can be definitely shown that the Cypriote Geometrical style began concurrently with the appearance of Geometrical pottery in Greece, it is still admissible to urge that Mycenaean art prevailed here for some time subsequent to its disappearance from the greater part of the Hellenic world. For this the accepted date is the end of the tenth century B.C., but it is not necessary to extend its influence in Cyprus more than two centuries longer, i.e. beyond the eighth century, at the latest.
If we accept the view generally held that the Mycenaean civilisation was Achaean, and that after the Dorian invasion its representatives were driven in an easterly direction and settled on the coast of Asia Minor; and if again we regard this as an historical version of the Greek traditions of the Trojan war and the subsequent migrations of the Achaean heroes[[840]]; we may then consider that the stories of Teucer’s foundation of a new Salamis and of an Argive colonisation of Curium find their verification in the Mycenaean settlements recently discovered on those two Cypriote sites. The extent and richness of the old Salamis at Enkomi at any rate seems to suggest that it may have flourished as a Mycenaean settlement for some centuries.
But to return to the pottery. Two forms are eminently characteristic of the Cypriote varieties. Of these, one—the “false amphora” (p. [271])—is not peculiar to the island, but is found wherever Mycenaean pottery has penetrated; though especially common in Cyprus, it is in fact the most popular of all Mycenaean shapes. The other is a large krater, found in two varieties, either a straight-sided deep bowl with wide mouth and no neck, or a spheroidal vessel on a high stem, with a low straight neck of less diameter than the body. It is this latter class which appears to be of local manufacture and presents such a variety of painted decoration.
Up to the year 1895 only some half-dozen of these kraters were known, one of which was found by General Cesnola in the rich necropolis at Agia Paraskevi near Nicosia[[841]]; another he alleged to have come from Amathus, but it was no doubt found at Maroni, not so far distant, where for many years a Bronze-Age cemetery has been known. In the above-named year two more came to light at Curium,[[842]] one of the same type as General Cesnola’s, with figures driving two-horse chariots; the other having in addition the unique subject of a series of women, each figure in a separate panel, represented as waving their arms or holding flowers.[[843]] These were speedily followed by the rich and valuable series from Enkomi now in the British Museum, since which time other interesting specimens have been obtained for the Museum in various excavations or have found their way into the hands of local collectors (see Plate [XII].).
PLATE XII
Mycenaean Vases from Cyprus (British Museum).