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The social and economic role of Baltic amber in ancient societies

Amber and the Mycenaeans

Pages 257-267 | Published online: 28 Feb 2007

NOTES

  • Anthony Harding and Helen Hughes-Brock, “Amber in the Mycenaean World,” with Appendix by Beck Curt W. Annual of the British School at Athens 1974 69 145 172 Anthony F. Harding, The Mycenaeans and Europe (London and New York: Academic Press, 1984); Jan Bouzek, The Aegean, Anatolia and Europe: Cultural Interrelations in the Second Millennium B.C., Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, 29 (Göteborg: Paul Åströms Förlag and Prague: Academia, 1985).
  • de Navarro , J.M. 1925 . Prehistoric Routes between Northern Europe and Italy Defined by the Amber Trade . Geographical Journal , 66 : 481 – 507 .
  • Beck , Curt W. 1966 . Analysis and Provenience of Minoan and Mycenaean Amber, I . Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies , 7 : 191 – 211 . Curt W. Beck, Gretchen C. Southard, and Audrey B. Adams, “Analysis and Provenience of Minoan and Mycenaean Amber, II: Tiryns,” Ibid., 9 (1968), 5–19; Curt W. Beck, Constance A. Fellows, and Audrey B. Adams, “Analysis and Provenience of Minoan and Mycenaean Amber, III: Kakovatos,” Ibid., 11 (1970), 5–22; Curt W. Beck, Gretchen C. Southard, and Audrey B. Adams, “Analysis and Provenience of Minoan and Mycenaean Amber, IV: Mycenae,” Ibid., 13 (1972), 359–85.
  • For accounts of the earlier work see et al. Infrared Spectra of Amber and the Identification of Baltic Amber Archaeometry 1965 8 96 98 and Beck, “Analysis, I” 191–204. Rolf C. A. Rottländer, “On the Formation of Amber from Pinus Resin,” Archaeometry, 12 (1970), 35–52, and “Der Bernstein und seine Bedeutung in der Ur- and Frühgeschichte,” Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica, 4 (1973), 11–32; cf. Harding 59 f. K. Schwochau, Thea Elis. Haevernick, and Dietrich Ankner, “Zur infrarotspektroskopischen Herkunftsbestimmung von Bernstein,” Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz, 10 (1963), 171–76; Dietrich Ankner, “Zur naturwissenschaftlichen Begründung des Begriffes der ‘Bernsteinstrassen,’” Ibid., 13 (1966), 296–301; Günter Mischer, Hans-Joachim Eichhoff, and Thea Elis. Haevernick, “Herkunftsuntersuchungen an Bernstein mit physikalischen Analysenmethoden,” Ibid., 17 (1970), 111–22. W. LaBaume, “Die Lagerstätten des Bernsteins und ihre kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutung im Altertum,” Die Kunde (Mitteilungen des Niedersächsischen Landesvereins für Urgeschichte, Hannover), 20 (1969), 3–10 and “Die naturkundliche Bernsteinforschung und ihre Bedeutung für die Frühgeschichte des Bernsteinhandels,” Kölner Jahrbuch für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, 11 (1970), 31–36.
  • Cf. Nissenbaum A. Lower Cretaceous Amber from Israel Naturwissenschaften 1975 62 341 342
  • See most recently Helck Wolfgang Die Beziehungen Ägyptens und Vorderasiens zur Ägäis bis ins 7.Jahrhundert v. Chr. Erträge der Forschung, 120 Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt 1979 126 126 and n. F. 163.
  • Nilsson , Martin Persson . 1953 . “ The Prehistoric Migrations of the Greeks ” . In Opuscula Atheniensia , Vol. I , 2 f – 2 f . Lund : Gleerup . Reprinted in his Opuscula Selecta Linguis Anglica, Francogallica, Germanica Conscripta (Lund: Gleerup, 1960), 469 f.
  • Dickinson , O.T.P.K. 1977 . The Origins of Mycenaean Civilisation , Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, 49 Göteborg : Paul Åströms Förlag . and “Cist Graves and Chamber Tombs,” Ann. Brit. Sch. Athens, 79 (1983), 60. For a summary of the whole question see James T. Hooker, Mycenaean Greece (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), ch. 3.
  • Muhly , James D. 1979 . “ On the Shaft Graves at Mycenae ” . In Studies in Honor of Tom B. Jones , Alter Orient und Altes Testament, 203 Edited by: Powell , Marvin A. and Sack , Ronald H. 311 – 323 . Kevelaer : Butzon and Bercker . in “Metals and Metallurgy in Crete and the Aegean at the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age,” Temple University Aegean Symposium, 5, ed. Philip P. Betancourt (Philadelphia: Temple Univ., 1980), 25–36; “Sources of Tin and the Beginnings of Bronze Age Metallurgy,” American Journal of Archaeology, 89 (1985), 285–91.
  • Harding and Hughes-Brock . 156 – 158 . Cf. full account by Sabine Gerloff, The Early Bronze Age Daggers in Great Britain and a Reconsideration of the Wessex Culture, Prähistorische Bronzefunde, VI: 2 (Munich: Beck, 1975), refs. in index.
  • Dickinson . Origins 55f – 55f . 105, 108. Against Muhly, see John W. Taylor, “Erzgebirge Tin: A Closer Look,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2, No. 3 (1983), 295–98. Michael J. Becker, “Sardinia and the Mediterranean Copper Trade: Political Development and Colonialism in the Bronze Age,” Anthropology, 4, No. 2 (1980), 91–117. On metal trade and sources generally see Harding, 44–57; Bouzek, 19–21, 83.
  • Bouzek . 83 – 83 . cf. 244.
  • Harding . 1 – 1 .
  • Renfrew , Colin . 1979 . Problems in European Prehistory , 281 – 309 . Edinburgh : Edinburgh Univ. Press . three of his important papers reprinted with new introduction and bibliography. Lucia Vagnetti, Magna Grecia e Mondo Miceneo, Nuovi Documenti: XXII Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia, Taranto, 7–11 Ottobre 1982 (Taranto: Istituto per la Storia e l'Archeologia della Magna Grecia, 1982), 121–23; Harding, 80 f., 87–104; Bouzek, 58–60.
  • Marinatos , Spyridon . 1962 . “ The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilization and its Influence on the Mediterranean and on Europe ” . In Atti del VI Congresso Internazionale delle Scienze Preistoriche e Protostoriche, Roma 1962 , Vol. I , 161 – 176 . Florence : G. C. Sansoni . Berta Stjernquist, Models of Commerical Diffusion in Prehistoric Times, Scripta Minora Reg. Soc. Humaniorum Litt. Lundensis 1965–1966, 2 (Lund, 1967); Rolf C. A. Rottländer, “Zur geographischen Verbreitung der Bernsteinfunde beim Übergang von der Älteren zur Jüngeren Eisenzeit,” Kölner Jahrbuch für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, 16 (1978–79), 89–110; Harding, 79 f.; Bouzek, 57 f., 219.
  • Renfrew , Colin . 1972 . The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C. , 467 f – 467 f . London : Methuen . Harding and Hughes-Brock, 153; John M. Coles and Anthony F. Harding, The Bronze Age in Europe: An Introduction to the Prehistory of Europe c. 2000–700 B.C. (London: Methuen, 1979), 66, 282; Karen Polinger Foster, Aegean Faience of the Bronze Age (New Haven and London, Yale Univ. Press, 1979), 39–41, 165–72; Harding, 81 f.
  • Chadwick , John . 1976 . The Mycenaean World , 156 – 158 . Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press .
  • Harding and Hughes-Brock . 154 – 154 . Cf. Coles and Harding, 328, n. 61; Bouzek, 57.
  • See Stella Luigia Achillea La Civilità Micenea nei Documenti Contemporanei Incunabula Graeca, 6 Edizioni dell' Ateneo Rome 1965 144 144
  • See Mylonas George E. O Taphikos Kyklos B tōn Mykēnōn Bibliothēkē tēs en Athēnais Arkhaiologikēs Etaireias, 73 Athens 1973 I 353 353 cf. 189.
  • For a recent survey see Niemeier Wolf-Dietrich Das Mykenische Knossos und das Alter von Linear B Beiträge zur ägäischen Bronzezeit 1982 29 127 Kleine Schriften aus dem Vorgeschichtlichen Seminar Marburg 11 English version “Mycenaean Knossos and the Age of Linear B,” Studi Micenei ed Egeo-anatolici, 23 [Incunabula Graeca, 80] (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1982), 219–87. That the amber finds in Crete, so strikingly few compared to those on the mainland, appear to cluster in the Knossos district certainly accords with the presence of Mycenaeans there, whatever they were doing. West Crete, still relatively unexplored, has only two or three finds, but East Crete, though much better known, has only three too, including the “quite a few fragments” from a LM IIIa/b tomb at Milatos: see Costis Davaras, Hagios Nikolaos Museum (Athens: Editions Hannibal, 1982), [24]. It is possible, but not provable, that there was somewhat more amber in Late Minoan Crete than the lists in Harding and Hughes-Brock, 167, and Harding, 306, would suggest. John Boardman has suggested plausibly that a seal from the dump at Arkades, dated c. 700 by the excavator, may be Bronze Age: see Island Gems: A Study of Greek Seals in the Geometric and Early Archaic Periods, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Supplementary Paper 10 (London, 1963), 128, n. 2. George S. Korres has followed with other possible cases: see “Minoikai Epibioseis kai Anabioseis, A',” Pepragmena tou Tritou Diethnous Krētologikou Synedriou, Rethymnon 1971 (Athens: Ministry of Culture and Sciences, 1973), I, 464 f.
  • Popham , Mervyn R. 1974 . Sellopoulo Tombs 3 and 4, Two Late Minoan Graves near Knossos . Ann. Brit. Sch. Athens , 69 : 203 – 203 . 214, 224, no. 314, fig. 6, pl. 38j, and “A Late Minoan Tomb on Lower Gypsadhes,” Ibid., 75 (1980), 171, fig. 6E, pl. 17c. Cf. a nearby burial which again the excavators suggest was a woman's, though perhaps on no strong evidence: Sinclair Hood, George Huxley, and Nancy Sandars, “A Minoan Cemetery on Upper Gypsades,” Ibid., 53–54 (1958–9), 200.
  • See Immerwahr Sara A. The Athenian Agora, XIII: The Neolithic and Bronze Ages The American School of Classical Studies at Athens Princeton 1971 108 108 247, no. XL-16.
  • Wace , A.J.B. 1932 . Chamber Tombs at Mycenae , 86 – 86 . London : Society of Antiquaries . Archaeologia, 82 no. 69a, fig. 33; Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, I: Die Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel des Nationalmuseums in Athen, bearbeitet von Agnes Sakellariou (Berlin: Mann, 1964), no. 154. The three beads and fragment found with skeleton XI (Wace, 74, no. 43, pl. 36) were overlooked by Harding and Hughes-Brock, 164.
  • From a rock-cut tomb cut to beehive shape, not tholos tomb as Harding and Hughes-Brock, 164. Cf. Waterhouse Helen Simpson Richard Hope Prehistoric Laconia: Part II Ann. Brit. Sch. Athens 1961 56 125 127
  • Deshayes , Jean and Dessenne , André . 1948–1954 . Fouilles Executées a Mallia: Exploration des Maisons et Quartiers d'Habitation , Vol. II , 74 – 74 . Paris : École Française d'Athènes . [Études Crétoises, 11] 1959 “Il n'est pas impossible….” An amber vase in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, no. 1970.945 (see Harding and Hughes-Brock, 167) is a fake, copied from an Early Minoan stone vase long known from a standard work. Cf. Stéphanos Xanthoudides, The Valuted Tombs of Mesará: An Account of Some Early Cemeteries of Southern Crete (Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Press and London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924), 79, no. 1024, pl. XLIIIa.
  • See Fraenkel Ernst Geschichte der Griechischen Nomina Agentis auf -tēr, -tōr, -−es (-t-) Karl J. Trubner Strassburg 1910 I 16 16 Untersuchungen zur Indogermanischen Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft, 1 Émile Boisacq, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque Étudiée dans ses Rapports avec les autres Langues Indo-Européennes (Heidelberg: Karl Winter and Paris: Klincksieck, 2nd ed., 1910), s.v. ēlektōr; John M. Riddle, “Amber: An Historical-etymological Problem,” Laudatores Temporis Acti: Studies in Memory of Wallace Everett Caldwell, ed. Mary F. Gyles and Eugene W. Davis, The James Sprunt Studies in History and Political Science, 46 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1964), 110–20; Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque: Historie des Mots (Paris: Klincksieck, 1970), s.v. ēlektōr; Martin S. Ruipérez, “Ēlektōr et ēlektron, ‘ambre,’” Mélanges de Linguistique et de Philologie Grecques Offerts à Pierre Chantraine, Études et Commentaires, 79 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1972), 231–41.
  • Perry , Wm. Jas. 1918–19 . The Significance of the Search for Amber in Antiquity . Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society , : 74 – 74 .
  • von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , Ulrich . 1931 . Der Glaube der Hellenen , Vol. I , 255 – 255 . Berlin : Weidmann .
  • Macurdy , Grace H. 1919 . The North Greek Affiliations of Certain Groups of Trojan Names . Journal of Hellenic Studies , 39 : 67 – 67 . Cf. Ruipérez, 238 f.
  • Bouzek . 176 f – 176 f .
  • Deroy , Louis and Halleux , Robert . 1974 . A propos du Grec ēlektron ‘ambre’ et ‘or blanc’ . Glotta , 52 : 37 – 52 .
  • Homer, Odyssey X, lines 80–132. Cf. Omero Odissea, vol. III: Libri IX–XIII, Introduzione, Testo e Commento a cura di Alfred Heubeck Mondadori Milan 1983 224 226 Denys Page, Folktales in Homer's Odyssey (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), ch. II, esp. 44–48. J. V. Luce, Homer and the Heroic Age (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 163. Cf. however Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Le Chasseur Noir: Formes de Pensée et Formes de Société dans le Monde Grec (Paris: Maspero, 1981), 47 f., 53, 64, who stresses the unrealness of the story.
  • Bacon , Janet Ruth . 1925 . The Voyage of the Argonauts , 118 – 124 . London : Methuen . 169
  • Beck , Southard and Adams . Analysis, II. Tiryns 17 f – 17 f . giving earlier bibliography.
  • Odyssey , XV 460 – 460 . XVIII, 295–96; IV, 73.
  • See Follett Thelma Amber in Goldworking Archaeology 1985 38 2 64 f 64 f Cf. Riddle, passim.
  • Riddle, passim Beck Curt W. Gerving Martha Wilbur Elizabeth The Provenience of Archaeological Amber Artifacts, Part 1: 8th Century B.C. to 1899 Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts 1966 6 2 215 f 215 f Suppl.
  • Histories Vol. III , 115 – 115 .
  • Geographica Vol. V , 1 – 1 . 9. See on the Elektrides John J. Wilkes, Dalmatica (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 4; on the Eridanus Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ed. Wm. Smith (London: John Murray, 1878), s.v. “Eridanus” (by Edward H. Bunbury); on Phaethon, Joan M. Todd and Marijean H. Eichel, “A Reappraisal of the Prehistoric and Classical Amber Trade in the Light of New Evidence,” Journal of Baltic Studies, 5 (1974), 301–04.
  • See Sestieri Anna Maria Bietti The Metal Industry of Continental Italy, 13th to the 11th Century B.C., and Its Connections with the Aegean Proc. Prehistoric Society 1973 39 408 408 and “Implicazioni del Concetto di Territorio in Situazioni Culturali Complesse; le Isole Eolie nell' Età del Bronzo,” Dialoghi di Archeologia, N.S. 4, No. 2 (1982), 39–60; Lucia Vagnetti, “Mycenaean Imports in Central Italy,” in Emilio Peruzzi, Mycenaeans in Early Latium, Incunabula Graeca, 75 (Rome: Edizioni dell' Ateneo e Bizzarri, 1980), 151–67, esp. 156 f., and Magna Grecia (see n. 14 supra), 9–40; Friedrich-Wilhelm von Hase, “Mykenische Keramik in Italien: Erläuterungen zu einer Verbreitungskarte nach dem augenblicklichen Forschungsstand,” Beiträge zur ägäischen Bronzezeit (Kleine Schriften aus dem. Vorgeschichtlichen Seminar Marburg 11, 1982), 13–28.
  • See Sestieri Bietti The Metal Industry 409 409
  • Schiavo , Fulvia Lo and Vagnetti , Lucia . 1980 . Micenei in Sardegna? . Atti della Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Rendiconti , 35 ( 5–6 ) : 371 – 395 . Fulvia Lo Schiavo, “Ambra in Sardegna,” Studi in Onore di Ferrante Rittatore Vonwiller, parte prima: I (Como: Società Archeologica Comense, 1982), 257–77. Cf. Birgitta Pålsson Hallager, “Crete and Italy in the LBA III Period,” American Journal of Archaeology, 89 (1985), 300–02, identifying some pottery as Minoan.
  • Iakovidis , Spyridon E. 1970 . Perati: To Nekrotapheion Vol. 67 , 483 – 483 . Athens B', Bibliothēke tēs en Ath. Arkh. Etaireias (=idem, Excavations of the Necropolis at Perati, Inst. of Arch., University of California, Los Angeles, Occasional Paper 8 [1980], 99) considers the two amber beads “obviously relics from earlier times.” Cf. Vincent R. d'A. Desborough, The Last Mycenaeans and their Successors: An Archaeological Survey c. 1200-c. 1000 B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 190, n. 4. “Black amber” from the Mediterranean, yiousouri in modern Greek, is also reported from Perati (Iakovidis, 463). Prof. Iakovidis kindly informs me that this is a kind of coral.
  • Cf. Marinatos The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilization and its Influence on the Mediterranean and on Europe Atti del VI Congresso Internazionale delle Scienze Preistoriche e Protostoriche, Roma 1962 G. C. Sansoni Florence 1962 I 166 166 Harding, 82–87, 307 f.
  • Vonwiller , Ferrante Rittatore . 1969 . Manufatti d'Ambra nella Tarda Età del Bronzo in Italia e nell' Area Micenea . La Parola del Passato , 24 : 383 – 387 . Harding, 85.
  • Marinatos , Spyridon . 1962 . “ Lausitzer Goldschmuck in Tiryns ” . In Theoria: Festschrift für W.-H. Schuchhardt , Deutsche Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, 12/13 Edited by: Epstein , Felix . 151 – 157 . Baden-Baden : Grimm . in Cf. Harding, 115; Bouzek, 172.
  • Bouzek . 222 – 222 . 241–43
  • See most recently Bankoff H. Arthur Winter Frederick A. Northern Intruders in LH IIIc Greece: A View from the North Journal of Indo-European Studies 1984 12 1–2 1 30 Birgitta Pålsson Hallager, “A New Social Class in Late Bronze Age Crete: Foreign Traders in Khania,” Minoan Society: Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium 1981, eds. Olga Krzyszkowska and Lucia Nixon (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1983), 110–19; Nancy Sandars, “North and South at the End of the Mycenaean Age: Aspects of an Old Problem,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2 (1983), 43–68. N. G. L. Hammond, Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas (Park Ridge, N.J.: Noyes Press, 1976), passim. For general surveys see Harding, 216–27 and Bouzek, 183–202.
  • Sandars . 66 – 66 .
  • See especially Die Ägäische Frühzeit, 4: Griechenland im Zeitalter der Wanderungen vom Ende der Mykenischen Ära bis auf die Dorier Vienna 1980 372 Österreichische Akad. der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse, Stizungsberichte

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