Traditional Cretan & Imported Ceramics

COMPARATIVE PRESENTATION OF ANCIENT FORMS

In order to give a clearer picture of traditional Cretan pottery forms, we present two types of classification:

Classification by use , which will be analysed in detail, and classification by shape , which is more specialised and will be presented without further comment.

Classification by use

It is observed that a rich pottery morphology evolved in Crete, meaning that each ceramic object served a specific purpose, to the exclusion of all others.

This tendency may be explained in many ways:

Together with modern pottery use ware, we also present some of the corresponding ancient forms, dating from 2000 BC to 700 AD.

The text gives the name of the ancient vessel (where known), the period in which it was used in archaeological terms (MM: Middle Minoan; LM: Late Minoan), the place of discovery in Crete, the name of the excavating archaeologist and the date of publication of each find.

This is the first time such research has been conducted in Greece and for a specific area.