AEGAEUM 20 Annales d’archéologi géenne de l'Université de Liége et UT-PASP MELETEMATA STUDIES IN AEGEAN ARCHAEOLOGY PRESENTED TO MALCOLM H. WIENER AS HE ENTERS HIS 65th YEAR Edited by Philip P. BETANCOURT, Vassos KARAGEORGHIS, Robert LAFFINEUR and Wolf-Dietrich NIEMEIER Université de Litge Histoire de art et archéologie de la Gréce antique University of Texas at Austin Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 1999MINOAN FAIENCE- AND GLASS-MAKING: TECHNIQUES AND ORIGINS” Faience The more we come to know the Minoan civilization, the better we realize that the Minoans, although an island people, were not isolated. They had connections with other Aegean islands, and mainland Greece, as well as Egypt and the Near East, from as early as EM times. This is evident in materials such as obsidian, gold, ostrich egg, and ivory, which are not native to Crete and must have been brought to it ay royal gifts! or through trade? Faience is often quoted as a material brought to Crete. This may have been true of some faience objects, but the bulk of the faience found in Crete seems to have been made locally, since it looks ‘a coherent corpus, with particular and often unique characteristics’3 It is, however, very possible that the Minoans did not invent the technique of faiencemaking themselves but learned it either in the Near-East* or in Egypt, where it had appeared long before it did in Minoan Crete. To assume that faience- making was learned implies contacts with the N or Egypt, not contacts at the level of trade or royal exchange but a more ‘intimate’ relationship, that of ‘master’ and ‘apprentice,’ since the knowledge of a specialised craft involved, a craft which cannot be learned by just looking at a crafisman working, as it requires the knowledge of the properties of quartz and metals. How can such a craft be learned, especially in times when knowledge of this kind must have been highly valued and therefore carefully guarded? Even in the twentieth century, some crafismen do not give away the secrets of their craft, or they share them only with members of their family. Should the question of immigrants or of itinerant Egyptian or Eastern faience- makers be considered? Did the Cretans learn the skill of faience-making in Egypt or the East and bring it back to Crete with them? Did it come with a bride? And when did faience-making start in Crete? ‘These are questions that may never be answered but I shall uy to show in this paper that it is in the subtle characteristics, technical and stylistic (shared between Minoan faience and that from other regions), that the origin of the technique of Minoan faience-making should be sought. In this way Minoan faience can be used to elucidate the level of contacts the inoans had with the NearEast and/or Egypt throughout their history. This study, which is still in its beginning, has been greatly asisted by grants from INSTAP, PSYCHA and the Leventis Foundation, I would like to express my deep gratitute to these Institutions without the help of which this study would have been impossible. I would also like to thank Dr P.RS. Moorey and Dr H Whitehouse for all their help in the Ashmolean with Near-Bastern and Egyptian faience, Mrs Ossi Misch Brandl for everything she did to facilitate my study in the Museums in Israel and Dr C.F. Macdonald for reading a draft of this article and making uselul comments, Tam also grateful to the Ashmolean Museum, and especially Mr Mark Norman for Pl. CXXIX2-b and Mr Y. Papadakis for Pl. CXXIXed. 1 On royal exchange sce S. ALEXIOU, “Minoan Palaces as Centres of Trade and M wufacture,” in R AGG and N. MARINATOS (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens (10-16 June 1984) (1987) 251-3. 2 M.WIENER, “The Nature And Control Of Minoan Foreign Trade,” in N.H. GALE (ed), Bronze Age Trade dn The Mediterranean. Papers presented at the Conference held at Rewley House (Oxford, December 1989) (1991) 5; also P. WARREN, “Minoan Crete and Pharsonic Egypt,” in W.V. DAVIES and L. SCHOFIELD (eds), Egypt the Aegean and the Levant. Interconnections in the Second Millennium BC (1995) 1-18. K.P. FOSTER, Aegean Faience of the Bronze Age (1979) 173. In the East faience appeared in the late fifth millennium as stated by FOSTER (supra n. 3) 22; see also P.RS. MOOREY, Materials and manufacture in Ancient Mesopotamia: The evidence of archaeology andar. Metals and metalwork, glazed materials and giass (1985) 136-7. On Egyptian faience see E. RIEFSTAHL, ‘Ancient Egyptian glass and glazes in the Brooklyn Museum (1968) 8; and P.T, NICHOLSON, Egyptian Faience ‘and Glass (1993) 6.618 Marina PANAGIOTAKL ‘Technical aspects The earliest evidence for faience in Crete comes from EM Mochlos;* archaeometric analyses now in progress will hopefully establish the origin of this faience. The first time we encounter faience in the Palaces is at Knossos in the MM IB (19" century B.C.)° Vat Room Deposit,” which can be taken as the real start of what was to come in Minoan faience-:making at Knossos - the main faience center, as is evident from the quantity of faience associated with the site and the existence of molds. This early faience (EM-MM IIB) is characterized by pure white or offwhite cores which consist of well ground (to fine powder) quartz or white sand. Such cores suggest good quality, glossy glaze which, however, survives only as patches or as a greenish tint, because of unfavorable conditions in the ground. In the next period (MM IIIA: 1700/1650-1640/1630 B.C), the white fine cores continue, but at the same time a great variety of gray and brown cores appear which are also of a very fine texture. A new feature of the period is the idea of overlaying different, contrasting colors on the main core to create various designs.8 The overlaying material is of fine texture, finer than the core material, and it is in gray, brown, black and red (Pl. CXXIXa). The glaze comes in different shades of olive green, lighter green and brown. Most of the objects are formed in molds achieving delicate and often intricate designs. Also inlaying makes its first appearance: a fine quality material is placed in prepared channels, grey or Brown is inlaid in a white core material, white in a dark core material (Pl CXXIXa). The next period (MM IIB/LM IA: 1600 or LM IA: 1600/1580-1480 B.C.), is also characterized by fine, white, off-white, cream or brown cores and a variety of glazes in turquoise, green or brown, Both the use of selfglazing and the application method of glazing are now evident.? Inlaying has increased at the expense of overlaying. ‘The faience-maker has become a confident vase maker 100; the vases are made in different pieces and are joined using a kind of a slurry. They are often decorated with designs in low relief or painted on.! The greatest achievement in this period is the realization that ftience can be used 1 create sculptures. At first simple plaques from an open mould are subsequently ground down and painted.!! Smaller objects in the round such as seashells and argonauts!? (Pl. CXXIXb) are created. It is, however, in the snake figures from the Temple Repositories at Knossos, that the Minoan faience-maker reaches the apogee of his skill as a sculptor. They are made in different parts and then joined; the hair, some facial features and the snakes are made separately and stuck on using’a slurry while the designs of the dresses are painted on; the arms are fixed with pins, perhaps of lead.!! The snake figures exhibit a freedom of movement quite unlike their contemporaries in Egypt made of faience, wood, stone etc. RB. SEAGER, Explorations on the island of Mochlos (1912) 85; G. CADOGAN, “Some faience, blue frit and sass from fifteenth century Knossos,” in P. BETANCOURT (ed), Temple Unieersity Argean Symposium (1976) 19, 6 The absolute dates used in this paper are taken from P. WARREN and V. HANKEY, Aqgean Bronze Age Chronology (1989) 169, Table 3.1 7 ALEVANS, “The Palace of Knossos,” BSA 9 (19028) 1.153, at p. 95, 98. See the Town Mosaic from the Palace of Knossos, A EVANS, PM 1 (1921) Figs 223, 9 Onghwing methods see P. VANDIVER, *Manufacuire of an Eighteenth Dynasty Egyp in M. BIMSON and 1G. FREESTONE (eds), Early Vitreous Materials (1987) 79-90, PELTENBURG, Early faience: recent studies, origins and relations with glass, FREESTONE (supra n. 9) 5-29, at p. 10. 10 EVANS (supra n. 8) Figs 3567. HL EVANS (supra n. 8) Figs 366.9. 12 EVANS (supra n. 8). Fig. 379. 13. EVANS (supra n. 8) Figs 35962. 14 KP. FOSTER and A. KACZMARCZYK, “Xray Muorescence analysis of some Minoan faience, Archavnmetry 24:2 (1982) 14357, al p. 149.MINOAN FAIENCE- AND GLASS-MAKING: TECHNIQUES AND ORIGINS 619 In the next period (LM IB 1480-1425) large sculpture is still produced. The core material continues to be of very good quality. The glaze now is monochrome green or turquoise with purplish patches which may not have been intentional. Inlaying and overlaying seem to be absent as far as we can tell. cis thus evident that the Minoan faience-maker follows basic rule, throughout the history of Minoan faience: making: his object has to have a very good quality core. This same rule characterizes the faience from the East. In Mesopotamia, for instance, at Tell Taya (2300- 2100 B.C.)"® the same white to cream, well ground core material is seen in a series of cylindrical beads and circular butions.!7 The same rule of good quality material applies on the 14°13" century B.C. Tell Rimah rossettes, beads and vase fragments. The same is true of MBA and LBA Syria, as attesteded by Caubet!® and Israel by the author. !9 Another common feature between Minoan Crete and the East is the fact that each object was treated as a unique piece of art. No mass production is evident in either of the two regions. Even objects that betray the same hand or school have certain special features which make them unique. This idea is evident in the Knossos Temple Repositories snake figures?? which seem to have been made by a single hand or school and although they look very similar they have differences in the way they stand or in their relationship with the snakes attached to them as well as in their dress. The same idea is evident in a series of LBA face-goblets?! found along the Levantine coast: although the idea is the same, and many of the faces are very ain facial differences that make each goblet a unique piece. Could this basic attitude towards faience shared between the East and Crete, imply that the Minoans had learnt the basic technique of faience making in the East? It is possible but other technical and stylistic factors should be taken into account. In Egypt we find good quality cores in the faience small objects recovered from the Pyramid of King Djoser® (Early Dynastic Period 26682649). It consists of pure white (with a very faint bluish tint which is noticed in a large number of Egyptian faience objects) and turquoise glazes similar to the Minoan ones. The majority of the early Egyptian faience (Early Dynastic and Old and Middle Kingdom animal figures and vases), however, has cores which consist of not well ground quartz or sand. Good quality cores characterize the New Kingdom period too when glass is added. The glaze, however, unlike Minoan glazes, is a thick, glossy layer very often in white. One common technical feature shared between Egypt and Minoan Crete is the use of what Lucas®* called Variant A used from the Middle Kingdom onwards®° The Egyptian faience-maker, to save labor (to grind quartz or sand), used less ground quartz or sand which he covered with a thin layer of fine, white quartz, mainly to enhance the quality of the glaze color. The same technique is first encountered at Knossos in the MM IIIB/LM LA or LM LA Temple Repositories in a dress,*® and it is also seen in two unprovenanced rosettes. from Knossos perhaps of LM I date. In one of the rosettes there are two different layers of fine material in white and brown used side by side 15 N.PLATON, Zakros: the discovery of« lst palace of ancient Crete (1971) Figs 142. 149, 16 J, READ, “Field observations of glass and ghized materials,” in BIMSON and FREESTONE (supra n, 9) $1 4, atp. 33, 17 The similarity of core and glaze material of the Tell Taya beads and buttons any faience Eastern or Egyptian that I have seen. 18 A. CAUBET and A. KACZMARCZYK, “Bronze Age faience from Ras Shamra (Ugur); FREESTONE (supra n. 9) 47-56, 19 The results from this study will appear in a forthcoming publication, 20° EVANS (supra n. 8) Figs 359.62, 377. 21 CAUBET and KACZMARCZYK (supra n. 18) 47:56, at p. 50. 22 P. VANDIVER, “The manufacture of faience,” Appendix A in A. KACZMARGZYK and REM. HEDG! Ancient Egyptian Faience (1983) A84; and NICHOLSON (supra n. 4) 21 23 VANDIVER (supra n. 22) A-108-10. 24° A.LUGAS, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries (4° ed,, 1989) 161-2, 25 VANDIVER (supra n. 22) A- 26M. PANAGIOTAKI, “The Temple Repositories of Knossos: new information from the unpublished notes of Sir Anhur Evans,” BSA 88 (1998) 61, Fig. D. jth Minoan material is unlike BIMSO’620 Marina PANAGIOTAKL Variant A has been used in the East, too, as early as MBA at Ras Shamra;27 it has also been seen in faience bowls and kohl pots fiom MBA Tel el Ajul and LBA Tell Abu Hawam and Lachish by the present author. As both, the bowls and the kohl pots stylistically seem to be under Egyptian influence, it may be reasonable to see the use of Variant A as an Egyptian invention the more so, since it was used extensively in Egypt but not so in the East. The fact that the Minoans were using an Egyptian invention may suggest that they learned the technique of faience making or at least the use of Variant A in Egypt, especially when another Egyptian invention, almost entirely absent from the East, that of inlaying, first found in the Old Kingdom period,” is also found in Minoan Crete. It first appears in MM IIA, and the Minoan faience-maker produces such combinations of colors and designs which point to his attempts to experiment and produce objects that matched the well-known Minoan frescoes. Stylistic aspects ‘The MM IILA House Facades fiom the Town Mosaic at Knossos"! (size and idea) recall the tiles used to decorate the walls of the Pyramid of King Djoser.® However, the blue to green monochrome of the Egyptian tiles makes a strong contrast with the polychrome Minoan House ¢ overlaying of different colors; so does the delicate and intricate relief work showing natural themes, human figures, animals and plants and houses of different shapes and decoration. Thus the idea of a wall covered with small decorative tiles may have come fiom Egypt (scen also later in the 20" Dynasty as well)! but the Min jisman used itin a colorful ‘Minoan’ way A lotus lower from the Temple Repositories’? recalls stylistically Egyptian lotus flowers, but the crafisman has given it two side petals which are never seen in Egyptian representations of lotus flowers; was the crafisman not so familiar with the proper Egyptian flower, or did he alter it intentionally for the sake of being different? The marriage of Egyptian to Minoan themes is shown in the waz lily faience pendant from the Temple Repositories where papyrus, a characteristic Egyptian plant, is combined with a lily, a characteristic Minoan flower, to produce a hybrid flower which epitomises the Minoan crafisman’s mind: he uses the ideas and skills he borrows in such a way that pleases his own (or his patrons’ or buyers’) ‘Minoan’ tastes. This is how Minoan faicnce acquired own style and its own characteristics, The treatment of faience vessels is totally Aegean; there are no shapes or decorative motifs on them that would recall either Egypt or the Near-East, with the exception of a MM IIB faience vase combined with gold, an idea that recalls both Egypt and the Near-East. ‘The snake figures from the Temple Repositories’? recall figures in Aegean frescoes from the Palace of Knossos or Thera. The locks of hair and rendition of the eyes and other facial features are Aegean. Similar features are seen in the above mentioned LBA Ill face. goblets from the East ~ the one from Ugarit’* is particularly similar to the face of the main snake figure. The flounced skirt of the other snake figure” recalls earlier representations with flounced whole robes or dresses from Ur" and is then seen much later in the ivory figure 27 CAUBET and KACZMARC 28 VANDIVER (supra n. 22) 79, 29 EVANS (supra n. 8) Fig. J.P. CORTEGGIANL, Tie Feypt ofthe Pharwoks at the Cairo Museum (1986) 345, NIGHOLSON (supra n 4) 33, EVANS (supra n. 7) Fig. 45 EVANS (supra 1. 8) Fig. 356; see also L. MORGAN, The miniature wall paintings of Thera (1988) 213, EVANS (supra n. 8) Figs 3567, EVANS (supra n. 8) Fig. 189 G. LILYQUIST and RH. BRILL, Studies Bary Kigyption Glass (1998) 9-0, EVANS (iupre 1, 8) Figs 950-62. CAPA. SCHAEFFER, Ugeritica 1 (1980) Pl. x. EVANS (supra n. 8) Fig 360 H. FRANKFORT, The art and architecture ofthe Ancient Orient (5% ed, 1996) Figs 120, 134 K (supra n. 18) 47-56, at p. 49.MINOAN FAIENCE- AND GLASS-MAKING: TECHNIQUES AND ORIGINS, on from Minet el Beida.*! Whether the similarities of these figures, so. distant in time, show interactions and contacts from the East to the Aegean and back again is debatable. What is perhaps @ purely Aegean idea, or a borrowed one that developed to such a degree as to look purely Aegean, is the emphasis on natural themes. Neither in Egypt nor in the East was nature so much glorified as in Minoan Crete. Animal plaques and three- dimensional land and marine animals from the Knossos Temple Repositories and the Palace of Zakro# exemplify this idea to the full This brief review does not I think single out a unique source for faiencemaking in Crete; this may be achieved through our archaeometric analyses. It does, however, show that Minoan faicnce has certain characteristics which can be found in the East (the use of a good quality core) and others which can be found in Egypt (the use of Variant A and inlaying besides representations of lotus and papyrus). It is possible that the Minoans borrowed the basic technique from the Near-East, enriched it with ideas taken from Egypt and produced what can be immediately identified as Minoan faience. Glass It may be that in the course of LM IB (1480-1425), faiencemaking disappears, or dwindles dramatically and glass makes its first appearance at the Palace of Knossos. Again we do not know whether the technique of glass-making was learned in the Near-East or in Egypt. Of great significance is the fact that unlike faience, glass appears in Crete almost at the same time or soon after it had appeared in Egypt. This may show that contacts were much closer in the second millennium B.C, and ideas and techniques were wansmitted quicker than in the third millennium B.C. Glass production takes over almost entirely afer LM IB, perhaps together with the Mycenaean: Glass pieces probably from a workshop by the Royal Road ® suggest that glass-making, like faienceamaking, was a palace-directed.and-centered industry. It is also of great significance that some of the earliest glass objects from Knossos continue the faience-making tradition. In fact they have been recorded in the publications and Museum inventories as of faience. Plaque-figures*” (Pl. CXXIX¢) from the South Propylaeum at the Palace of Knossos recall the Temple Repositories snake figures, but they are executed in a more restrained way, perhaps because the craftsman was not so familiar with the new material. A sword pommel decorated with spirals in low relief (PL. CXXIXd) and a rosette also from the Palace exhibit the same delicate designs seen in Minoan faience. These objects may have been produced by the same school of Minoan faience-making or a school that was following the Minoan faience-making lines. Glass relief beads in great variety of shape and color become gradually more common suggesting mass production; although their themes continue to be drawn from nature they become more stylized. Minoan Crete certainly played a part in faience and glass production. But it must not be forgotten that the faience- and glass-making technique appeared in the Near East and Egypt before it did in Grete. The Minoan crafismen must have borrowed the craft from the Near East and/or Egypt, but they used it in a way that suited their needs and satisfied t aesthetic demands and standards, which were different from the needs and standards of the people of Egypt or the Near East. It is impossible to mistake a Minoan faience product for Egyptian or Near Eastern and vice versa. Thus, although the technique was borrowed, each region used it differently and each contributed to the world of art that we are uying to 41 FRANKFORT (supra n, 40) Fig. 307, 42 EVANS (supra n. 8) Figs 966-7, 43. EVANS (supra n. 8) Fig. 379. 44 PLATON (supra n, 15) Figs at p. 142, 149. 45 CADOGAN (supra a. 5) 19-20, 46 CADOGAN (supra nm. 5) 19-20, PM I (1928) Fig, 440.oz Marina PANAGIOTAKL appreciate today. It is this difference which characterizes the Minoan products and_makes them unique in their own right, as unique are the Egyptian and the Near Eastern products. Marina PANAGIOTAKIPL CXXIXa PL CXXIXD. PL CXXIXe PL CXXIXd, MINOAN FAIENCE- AND GLASS-MAKING: TECHNIQUES AND ORIGINS, 63 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Faience inlays from the Town Mosaic at Knossos exhibi inlaying Faience argonaut from the Temple Repositories at Knossos. Glass figure from near the South Propylacum at Knossos, Glass sword pommel from Knossos, the technique of overlaying and.CXXIX oOo Dee a ae aw er Lia