Few objects in the
Gallery's collection of classical antiquities are as important as the Mycenaean
Greek kraters in the Ancient Gallery. (Both are not always on view.) These
wine-mixing bowls are known to have been found on Cyprus and acquired by the
diplomat Frederic Morgan between 1901 and 1903 when he was First Consul of the
American Consulate
in Cairo. The origin of the kraters, however, may lie in early Greece before the age of Homer.
During the Bronze Age an
advanced civilization arose on the mainland of Greece. Its people were
grouped into city-states, the most
important of which was
Mycenae. The Mycenaeans conquered the older Minoan civilization off the
island of Crete around 1450 BC, and thereafter dominated the entire Aegean
Sea. They traded widely in the eastern Mediterranean and were
particularly influential on the island of Cyprus.
The Gallery's kraters,
depicting war chariots on the march, belong to a very late phase of the
Mycenaean style, dating from the thirteenth century BC. After this time
the Mycenaean civilization mysteriously collapsed. Scholars do not agree
whether the kraters were made in Greece and exported to Cyprus or were created
in Cyprus by Greek-trained artists. Since the smaller of the two is
decorated in Cypro-Minoan script, however, an origin in Cyprus may be more
likely. Though reassembled from fragments, the two kraters retain their
perfect shape and most of their original painting. The simplified
depiction of the horses and riders— one horse body with two heads, two tails,
two sets of reins and two riders in the chariot—are very different from the
naturalistic figures and plants characteristic of Mycenaean art of two
centuries earlier. Their large size and formal elegance convey the
assurance of Europe's earliest great civilization.
(from an article by Donald Rosenthal, Gallery
Notes, September, 1980)
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| Mycenaen Krater |
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