Submycenaean pottery is a style of

ancient Greek pottery Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

. It is transitional between the preceding Mycenaean pottery and the subsequent styles of Greek vase painting, especially the Protogeometric style. The vases date to between 1030 and 1000 BC. Submycenaean pottery is not very well researched, as only few sites from the period have been discovered so far. The style was first recognised in 1939 by

Wilhelm Kraiker Wilhelm Kraiker (4 August 1899 – 24 April 1987) was a German classical archaeologist. Life Born in Frankfurt, in 1927 Kraiker received his doctorate at Heidelberg University under Ludwig Curtius. In 1928/29 he received a , afterwards he was as ...

and Karl Kübler, based on finds from the Kerameikos and Pompeion cemeteries in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

and on Salamis. The existence of the style remained disputed among archaeologists until later discoveries in

Mycenae Mycenae ( ; grc, Μυκῆναι or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos; and south of Corinth. ...

clearly showed the existence of separate Late Mycenaean and Submycenaean

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as e ...

. Submycenaean pottery occurs primarily in contexts such as

inhumation Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

s and stone-built

cist A cist ( or ; also kist ; from grc-gre, κίστη, Middle Welsh ''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle Ea ...

graves. Find locations are widely distributed, suggesting a settlement pattern of hamlets and villages. Apart from the sites mentioned above, Submycenaean pottery is known from locations such as

Corinth Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part ...

, Asine, Kalapodi, Lefkandi and

Tiryns Tiryns or (Ancient Greek: Τίρυνς; Modern Greek: Τίρυνθα) is a Mycenaean archaeological site in Argolis in the Peloponnese, and the location from which the mythical hero Heracles performed his Twelve Labours. It lies south of M ...

. The quality of the vases varies widely. Only few shapes were produced, especially

stirrup jar A stirrup jar is a type of pot associated with the culture of Mycenaean Greece. They have small squat bodies, a pouring spout, and a second nonfunctioning spout over which the handles connect like a stirrup. During the Late Bronze Age, they we ...

s with a pierced shoulder,

belly amphora An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

e and neck amphorae, ''

lekythoi A lekythos (plural lekythoi) is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil (Greek λήκυθος), especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel, and is thus a narrow type of jug, with no pou ...

'' as well as jars, some with trefoil-shaped mouths. By the end of the Submycenaean period, the stirrup jar was replaced by the ''lekythos''. Submycenaean decoration is rather simple, the hand-painted motifs are limited to horizontal or vertical wavy lines, single or double hatched and overlapping triangles, as well as single or multiple concentric semicircles. The shoulders of ''lekythoi'', amphorae and stirrup jars bore ornamental decoration. Amphorae, '' amphoriskoi'' and jugs were usually painted with one or several thick wavy lines. In general, the style was much shorter and less carefully made than the previous types of pottery, leading one art historian to describe it as "rather unloveable".

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References

Thomas Mannack Thomas Mannack (born in 1958) is a German classical archaeologist. Mannack obtained his Doctorate in 1992 with at the University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-U ...

: ''Griechische Vasenmalerei. Eine Einführung''. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, p. 66f. .

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Further reading