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The Cypriote Pottery from the Iria Shipwreck
Professor Paul Åström
Cypriote pottery has been found in a wide area from Umm el-Marra (East of Aleppo) (Curvers & Schwartz 1997: 220, 223. Fig. 20: 5-8) and Mubaqat (East of the Euphrates) (Orthmann & Kühne 1974: 93, Fig. 39) in the East to Antigori in Sardinia in the West (Jones & Day 1987; Ceruti et al. 1987,17-19; Vagnetti 1992, 633-634; Åström 1991, 13; Stos Gale and Gale 1992, 322). The hand-made White Slip and Base-ring vases were popular exports in the Eastern Mediterranean. Domestic plain pots were less attractive for exports. We find, however, plain Cypriote jugs on the shipwreck from Cape Gelidonya, where they were probably used as kitchen ware by the crew (Bass 67, 123, Fig. 132: 14-16). Cypriote plain ware was also present on the shipwreck from Iria, probably used in the daily household. A large jug with solid, stable, flat base and thick walls, numbereed A 20, was particularly suitable for a voyage on the sea and was perhaps made precisely to be used on board a ship. A base of a similar jug but smaller, A 9, has also been found. The upper part of another jug, A 97, is also preserved. The ship carried also a number of Cypriote pithoi and a stone anchor, possibly of Cypriote origin.
The Cypriote pottery on board has been dated to Late Cypriote IIC/Late Cypriote IIIA1, thus around 1200/1190 B.C. It seems difficult to narrow down the absolute chronology more precisely than that by pottery alone, but let us try at least to arrive at a relative chronology.
When I wrote this communication I had at my disposal the published articles about the shipwreck (Pennas 1991; Lolos 1995; Lolos et al. 1995). Dr Lolos had also kindly sent me a drawing of the upper part of a juglet with trefoil mouth. Dr Lolos and Mr Vichos had kindly shown me the finds some years ago. I cannot find an exact parallel for the fragmentary juglet in Cyprus, where however the general type is known (cf. Åström 1972, 245-246). There are other vessels which may be Cypriote which are unpublished. I cannot find any exact parallels for the wide bowls or bathtubs, although similar vessels with different profiles are known from Cyprus (Maier & Karageorghis 1984, Fig.78; Karageorghis in Lolos 1995), so I shall concentrate on the date of the Cypriote pithoi and the flat-based jug from the shipwreck.
The border line between Late Cypriote IIC and IIIA1 is in some ways floating, but guiding lines begin to crystallize. Let us first look at Late Cypriote IIC parallels for the Iria finds.
The finds from excavations at Kalavasos, Ayios Dhimitrios, directed by Ian A. Todd and Alison K. South, give us a picture of the material culture characterizing LCIIC and its end. Earlier finds have also been found at that site, but they are not relevant in this case. The site was apparently abandoned at the end of the period, so it provides an important terminus ante quem. Material from the site is not later than Late Cypriote IIC and antedates the catastrophes which befell Cyprus at the transition from Late Cypriote IIC to IIIA1.
It is only in the last decades that a sufficient number of Cypriote pithoi have been found in well dated contexts to enable a thorough typological study to be made. Priscilla Keswani has made a beginning by classifying the pithoi from Kalavasos according to size. A complete pithos which has been published is not a close parallel for the Iria pithoi, but a similar neck profile is present among the fragments (Keswani 1989, Fig. 17:24). A comparable jug like the Iria one is also present among the finds from Kalavasos and thus dates from Late Cypriote IIC (Keswani 1989, 18, Fig. 19:6). Other jugs and wide bowls from this site resembling the Iria vessels may also be pointed out (Keswani 1989, Fig. 19 and 20).
The finds from the first period of the sanctuary at Ayia Irini are probably all Late Cypriote IIC (Åström & Åström 1972, 694-695) comprising e.g. Base-ring II Ware and a Mycenaean IIIB kylix. Several pithoi were found there. One of them has been restored and it is of the same slender shape as one of the Iria pithoi. The sanctuary also contained a Plain jug of a type similar to the Iria jug with flat base.
The finds from Karageorghis´ excavations at Pyla, Kokinnokremos, have been attributed to the end of Late Cypriote IIC, when the first Mycenaean IIIC1 sign appears. I am now inclined to agree with that opinion (earlier view in Åström 1983, 13). There are good parallels for the flat-based jug and the pithoi at Pyla, Kokinnokremos (Karageorghis & Demas 1984, PL. XX and XXII, XXXVIII and XLI).
The lowest burial layer of Enkomi Tomb 6 contained a number of similar jugs (Gjerstad et al. 1934, 494-495, Nos. 11 and 69, Pl. LXXIX:2, second row; Åström 1972, 247, Type VIIID1a1-2). The layer was sealed at the very end of Late Cypriote IIC. It also contained one of the few exported Mycenaean IIIB2 deep bowls of Type B with broad band (Gjerstad et al. 1934, Pl. LXXIX:2, row 6: 6).
A comparable jug was also found in Dikaios’ Tomb 11 at Enkomi. This tomb was closed before Late Cypriote III (Dikaios 1969, 395, Pl. 213:19/2).
The pithoi and Plain jugs from the Iria shipwreck may also be compared with finds from Late Cypriote IIC to IIIA1 contexts.
Floor II in the excavations at Maa, Palaeokastro, is attributed to Late Cypriote II but continues into Late Cypriote IIIA1. There are parallels for the pithos and for the flat-based jug from Floor II at Maa (particularly Karageorghis & Demas 1988, Pls. CLXXXIV:462, CXCV:615, CXCVI:432, 377).
Another site is Myrtou-Pigadhes, where jugs and pithoi similar to the Iria ones occur in strata V-VII, from Late Cypriote IIC to IIIA (Catling 1957, 52, 56-59, Forms 306-307, 361; Åström 1972, 689, 693).
A jar and a jug from Apliki are similar to the Iria specimens (du Plat Taylor 1952, 143, Fig. 8:1 and 4). They were found in a house which was constructed in Late Cypriote IIC and destroyed at the beginning of Late Cypriote IIIA.
At Hala Sultan Tekke, a Late Bronze Age harbour town on Cyprus, similar pithoi were buried in the ground to function as ancient refrigerators and there are good parallels for the plain jug, particularly from the contents of well F 7001 (Åström 1998, Figs. 11, 128, 129, 133, 135, 137 and 138). The jugs had been dropped near or at the bottom of the well. It is possible that they date from Late Cypriote IIC but the well was in use into Late Cypriote IIIA1.
However, if the types occur already in Late Cypriote IIC, we may also reckon with some time for the actual use of the pots after they were made, that is with survivals in Late Cypriote IIIA1.
A corpus of Late Bronze Age pithoi found on Cyprus comprising about a hundred sites was given in The Swedish Cyprus Expedition vol. IV:1C (Åström 1972, 259-264). The sites which I have already mentioned should be added to the list as well as new finds from e.g. Athienou (Dothan & Ben-Tor 1983, 113-115, Fig. 52, Pl. 35), Maroni (Cadogan 1983), Toumba tou Skourou (Vermeule & Wolsky 1990) and Paphos (Maier & Karageorghis 1984, 95, Fig. 79).
Cypriote pithoi have been found abroad at Minet el-Beida, Ras Shamra (Schaeffer 1949, Fig. 86:22, 23, 27, Pl. XXXI:2), Kommos (Watrous 1992, 157,158, Fig.70, Pl. 52), Agrigento (Karageorghis 1993, 584), Antigori (see above) and on the Kash shipwreck (Bass 1987, 710; Bass et al. 1989, Fig.2), where some of them contained Cypriote pots. Generally, the pithoi contained oil, water, seeds etc. and were used as containers. They may have been exported for their own sake or as containers which were later on recycled for use as storage jars. I do not know if the pithoi from Iria were empty or if analyses could give us an idea of their contents. Cypriote pothoi were made at Toumba tou Skourou, where masses of pithoi were found (Vermeule & Wolsky 1990, 378-381) and analyses of the clays have also shown that they were made in the Larnaca and the Limassol Area (Jones & Day 1987; Jones & Vagnetti 1991, 134; Bryan et al. 1997).
Summarizing I consider the Cypriote pottery from the Iria shipwreck most likely to have been made in Late Cypriote IIC. This does not exclude the possibility that the pithoi and jugs were still in use after that period. The absence both of Plain White Wheel-made II Ware and Bucchero Ware provides an argument against a Late Cypriote IIIA date, although fine Bucchero occurs earlier, eg. on the Kash shipwreck. That there were contacts between the Argolid and Cyprus is proved by the fact that Mycenaean IIIB2 deep bowls have been found at Enkomi in Tomb 6 as already mentioned and at Hala Sultan Tekke (Åström 1998, 84, Figs. 150 and 152)..
Did the ship sail outside the coast of Argolis before, under or after the catastrophes at the end of Mycenaean IIIB2? Can we answer that question? Is dating based on pottery sensitive enough to decide? In view of the circumstance that several sites in this area - Tiryns, Midea, probably also Mycenae, Iria and the island of Dokos - were struck by seismic activities at that time, one might hypothesize that the ship capsized and was driven to the shore by waves caused by a violent earthquake. Waves caused by earthquakes tend to be very high near the beaches. The writer was on board a ship outside Paphos on 10th September 1953, when an earthquake and subsequent tremors caused damage to the buildings on land and the huge ship was lifted up by the waves at sea. I end with a question: was the earthquake in the Argolid at the end of Mycenaean IIIB2 the cause of the fatal destiny of the ship that sank near the coast of Iria? Did the pottery fall out from the ship, if it was turned upside down? Did it float away somehere else, since there are no traces of it in the area of the finds?
Paul Åström
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