Peter Pavuk
Over the past 100 years Troia has become a key prehistoric reference site. However, whereas there has always been a steady interest in all aspects of the Early Bronze Age of the site, the material from the second millennium has remained largely unstudied. Research has concentrated only on the Mycenaean painted pottery and 95 % of the other material evidence has largely been omitted. Therefore, the focus of this article will be on Middle and Late Bronze Age Trojan chronology and its wider implications. The new phasing of Early and Middle Troia VI will first be described after which the overall dating of Troia Vi will be discussed.
Since the new results are still somewhat preliminary, only a shorter version of the paper delivered at the SCIEM 2000 Conference is presented here. More in-depth discussion of the related topics and the new evidence will be included in the final publication series on the Troia excavations.1
The new phasing of Early and Middle Troia VI
Blegen divided Troia VI into 8 phases labelled by the lower case letters a-h and grouped them somewhat loosely into 3 sub-periods: VI-Early, Middle and Late.2 His subdivisions are mainly architectural so i often wondered whether they could also be defined and distinguished in ceramic terms. The recent excavations have made such an investigation possible and some of the preliminary results are presented here.
Four ceramic phases of Troia Vi have been distinguished. The hallmark of the first ceramic phase is the initial appearance of the so-called Anatolian Grey Ware, a. k.a. Grey Minyan. There is now increasing agreement among specialists that the Greek and Anatolian grey wares should be kept separate and treated individually.574 However, despite the proclaimed chronological and typological differences between the two, almost all the new shapes in which Anatolian Grey ware first occurs at Troia come from the Aegean. They comprise the Lianokladhi goblet, Pteleon Goblet, semiglobular cup and kantharos.575 It should be noted, though, that this applies only to Troia and to some other West Anatolian coastal sites; further inland there are no Aegean shapes at all.576 The only local Grey Ware shape at Troia is the so-called bead-rim bowl. The rest of the shapes and wares continue in some way from Troia V; indeed, this phase could almost be called the final Troia V phase. However the hallmarks of Troia V, Red Cross Bowls and volute handles, are already absent. This is Blegen’s architectural phase Vla and it can be described as a transitional phase between Troia V and VI.
The second ceramic phase witnesses the introduction of a whole new set of shapes. The Aegean goblet-like shapes are gone, kantharoi become more popular and occur in two subtypes and there are new types of carinated cups. This is also the beginning of the era of the typical Northwest Anatolian ribbed two-handled bowls. Proportions of Anatolian Grey Ware now reach ca. 30% and for the first time closed shapes (jugs) are also produced in this ware. A different kind of semiglobular cups, as well
* Department of Archaeology, Comenius University, Bratislava
1 The sudden death of the director of the Troia excavations, Prof. Dr. Manfred O. Korfmann, has shattered all members of the Troia Project, as well as many other colleagues. I would like to acknowledge my deep gratitude for all his help and encouragement over the years. His omnipresence will be sorely missed.
Relevant summaries of the new results from the ongoing excavations at Troia VI and Vlla are presented in KORF-MANN 1996; 2001 and in Becks 2002. The article has been completed with the aid of the slovak scientific Grant Agency VEGA, grants 1/9092/02 and 1/1211/04.
2 Blegen et al. 1953, 11-20.
As some krater-like shapes, appear in Burnished Plain Ware and are often decorated with zig-zag patterns in added white paint. From what we know until now, they seem to be imported from Samoth-race.6 There is no Mycenaean pottery in this phase, but there are some Mattpainted sherds from Ble-gen’s excavations.7 This second phase spans Blegen’s architectural phases VIb and VIc.
The third ceramic phase covers the whole of Blegen’s VI-Middle and the beginning of his VI-Late. The shapes of the drinking cups change once again. Especially popular become now carinated cups and show a wide variety of sub-types. The ribbed bowls probably continue but a number of further types of two-handled carinated bowls come into existence. Tan Ware, a light-faced companion to Anatolian Grey Ware, appears for the first time; at first quite modestly with just two or three shapes, such as plates, small round handleless bowls and jugs. Much later, during Troia VIIa, it becomes the dominant Trojan ware.8 The third ceramic phase corresponds to Blegen’s architectural phases VId, VIe and Vlf and from now on Mycenaean pottery occurs. There is also imported mattpainted pottery of an unknown origin in this phase; for the time being we can only say that it is different from all the variants present on the Greek mainland.
Dating Troia IV and V
To date the beginning of Troia VI, one has to go back and establish absolute and relative dates for Troia IV and V. The majority of previous chronological schemes have still placed Troia V within the 3rd millennium, although the evidence speaks clearly for a date at the beginning of the 2nd millenni-um.9 There is, for example, EH III pattern painted pottery from Blegen’s excavations in Troia IV and an imported winged jar of a Trojan type datable to Troia III-IV was found in Lerna IV, which also dates to EH III.577 Moreover, S. Manning has shown, that the end of Troia IV probably overlaps with MM
Ia indicating a date in the 2nd millennium.578 Therefore, Troia V cannot be older than 2000 BC, but apart from a few C579 dates and an imported Minoan jug, there is not much evidence from Troia for its date. The C579 dates come from possible wooden coffins in two Troia V graves from the Lower Town (Area D20); their combined range is ca. 1850-1770 B. C.580 The context and the dating of the Minoan jug is unfortunately less clear, than has been claimed in the preliminary reports. The jug comes from a cist grave, which dates either to the end of Troia V or to the beginning of Troia VI (and not to Middle Troia V). It belongs to the so called Creamy-bordered Style and in Cretan terms dates to early MM IIIA according to J. A. McGilliveray.581 Some scholars would prefer to date the jug to MM IIB,579 but in any case the date is somewhere around 1750 B. C. on high Aegean chronology. This means that Troia VI should start not much earlier.
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