GREEK PREHISTORY (GRAY MINYAN)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/15/99 12:23:37 AM, kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu wrote:
<<I don't know all the details regarding that pottery style, but I'm pretty
confident in stating that you're MISREPRESENTING the field if you say that it
was "quite clear" that the Minyan pottery REPRESENTS A CONTINUATION of an
earlier style.>> (caps are mine)

We'll be getting to misrepresentations later.  But at this point it's
probably important that those on the list who are interested rely on more
than your confidence, which may be a bit misleading.  Below I quote sources
that say that Gray Minyan is both a continuation and has no established
connection with a northern migration, but rather probably has its roots in
Anatolia.

Once again, I am NOT saying that the appearance of Gray Minyan proves
anything specifically.  But its seems that these days Gray Minyan lends NO
SERIOUS SUPPORT for a northern invasion or migration by Greek speakers during
this period.

I wrote:
<<In the bad old days, Gray Minyon was associated with "the arrival of the
Greeks" from the north, but it is now quite clear that the pottery style is a
continuance....>>

Here are some descriptions of a current understanding of Grey Minyan pottery.
 If there are any recent documented findings that contradict what's written
below, it would be great to see them.

<<Until about 1960, Gray Minyan was often identified as the pottery of
northern invaders who destroyed EH civilization ca. 1900 B.C. and introduced
MH material culture into the Greek peninsula.   However, Caskey's excavations
at Lerna as well as more recently excavated sequences at several other sites
have MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that Gray Minyan, rather than being new in the
MH period, is the DIRECT DESCENDANT of the fine gray burnished pottery of the
EH III Tiryns culture. Moreover, it seems likely that the Black/Argive
variety of Minyan is nothing other than an evolved version of the EH III
"Dark slipped and burnished" class....>> (caps are mine)

<<...Furthermore, there is nothing particularly "northern" about the ancestry
 of the EH III progenitors of MH Minyan except that they almost certainly
came to the northeastern Peloponnese from central Greece (i.e. from the north
with respect to the Peloponnese).>> (This corrects my statement about Minyan
not being found north of the Peloponnese.)

<<The term "Minyan" was originally coined by Schliemann very early in the
history of Aegean prehistoric archaeology ... The monochrome burnished
pottery manufactured from moderately to extremely fine clays which is
presently described as "Minyan ware" can occur in Gray, Black (or Argive),
Red, and Yellow varieties. The most common shapes in all varieties of Minyan
are open forms, for the most part goblets and kantharoi which are clearly
recognizable as EVOLVED FORMS of the Bass bowl and kantharos of the EH III
Tiryns culture.>> (caps are mine)

[With regard to the Bass bowl]: <<Virtually all these new shapes [Lefkandi I]
are derived from Western Anatolian prototypes of late Troy II or Troy III
date, as is presumably also the use of the fast wheel....the Bass bowl
[however] has a long local history going back to the EH I period, while the
other two appear to be local developments in this phase which may have been
at least partially inspired by the Anatolian influence evident in much of the
"Lefkandi I" ceramic assemblage.>>

<<One other distinctive ceramic class of [Tiryns] culture consists of fine
gray burnished vases, almost invariably kantharoi, Bass bowls, and tankards.
This gray ware is the EH III ANCESTOR of the characteristic Middle Helladic
ware known as "Gray Minyan". At Lerna, Lefkandi, and Tsoungiza/Nemea, a good
deal of this EH III fine gray burnished pottery is wheelmade, whereas almost
all of the rest of the pottery of this period is handmade.>> (caps are mine)

<<The angular profiles of Gray Minyan vases are in fact probably due simply
to the common utilization of the fast wheel in their production.... the
development of Minyan ware is probably best associated with the arrival of
the fast wheel from Anatolia...>>

The above are excerpted from J Rutter's Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
on the web at
(http://tenaya.cs.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/3.html) and
(http://tenaya.cs.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/9.html) and
Nordquist, "The Pottery of the Early Helladic III and Middle Helladic
Periods," in Runnels, Pullen, & Langdon, Artifact and Assemblage: The Finds
from a Regional Survey of the Southern Argolid (Stanford1995) 43ff.

I hope this gives interested list members a sense of how unsatisfactory the
Gray Minyan evidence is as a support for a northern migration.  Of course, I
may be wrong.  There may be newer documented archaeological evidence that
contradicts this.  I'd love to hear about it.

Regards,
Steve Long