History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 1 (of 2)Walters, H. B. (Henry Beauchamp)
History
History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 1 (of 2)
Walters, H. B. (Henry Beauchamp)
Mythology, Classical, in art; Pottery, Ancient; Pottery, Etruscan; Pottery, Greek; Pottery, Roman
(2) =Geographical.=—Having defined our historical limits, it remains to
consider the extent of Greek civilisation during that period, as
attested by archaeological or other evidence. Besides the mainland of
Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea, the whole of Asia Minor may
be regarded as in a measure Greek, although practically speaking only a
strip of territory along the western coast became really Hellenised,
and we shall not be concerned with pottery-finds in any other part of
the country.[48] To the north-east, Greek colonisation penetrated as
far as Kertch and other places in the Crimea, known to the ancients as
Panticapaeum and the Bosphoros respectively. In the Eastern
Mediterranean the island of Cyprus will demand a large share of our
attention. Egypt, again, has yielded large numbers of vases, mostly
from the two Greek settlements of Naukratis and Daphnae; and farther to
the west along the north coast of Africa was the Greek colony of
Kyrene, also a fruitful site for excavators.
The rest of the ground is covered by the island of Sicily and the
peninsular portion of Italy from Bologna southwards. Greek vases have
occasionally turned up in Spain, Gaul (_i.e._ France and North Italy),
as at Marseilles (Massilia), where primitive Greek pottery has been
found, and also in Sardinia; but the Western Mediterranean sites are
chiefly confined to Southern Italy and Etruria. In fact, till recent
years these regions were almost our only source of information on Greek
pottery, as has already been pointed out.
Generally speaking, it may be said that all Greek vases have been found
in tombs, but the circumstances under which they have been found differ
according to locality. We propose in the succeeding section to say
something of the nature of the ancient tombs, and the differences
between those of Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and other sites.
Of finds on the sites of temples and sanctuaries it is not necessary to
say much here; the explanation of such discoveries will receive some
attention in Chapter IV., and the individual sites will also be noted
in the next section of this chapter. It is a rare occurrence to find
complete vases under these circumstances, as they generally owe their
preservation to the fact that they have been broken in pieces and cast
away as rubbish into holes and pits. The most notable instance is the
remarkable series of fragments discovered on the Acropolis at Athens.
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