Minoan Art Pottery

Minoan Pottery Flamboyance

From around 2700 to 1450 BC, the Minoan civilization flourished as a seafaring and mercantile culture. This vibrant culture was centred around the island of Crete and eventually dominated the Agean region. The Egyptians called the Minoans “the Sea Peoples” and had a fond appreciation for Minoan pottery and ceramics, prized for their innovative shapes and sea-inspired designs. Their vases and jugs were made in fine clay with thin walls and was an outstanding achievement at this time. Their decorative wares were covered in bold, flowing, rhythmic movements with patterns using linked curvilinear and undulating lines.

Minoan pottery was initially decorated with designs in dark, often shiny paint(vitreous slip), in shades of red, brown, and black, on a light surface. Between 1900-1700BC the Kamáres style developed into the most colourful and vibrant style of pottery form and decoration yet seen anywhere. Images were painted on a black-brown background in reds, whites and blues. Sea and shore fauna and flora were the most important source of design. The animals displayed a playful nature and emphasised a flambuoyant liveliness characteristic of Cretean Art. Nowhere else in the art of the ancient world was such a lightness of spirit displayed, compared to the creativity of the Minoans at the height of their power in the early 15th century BC.

From 1700BC their technique of making and handling quartz frit paste had reached a higher standard than any other culture. Many small colourful plaques, figurines and jewelry in blue and polychome were made and exported, along with their pottery, to Egypt and the Levant islands of the Aegean Sea, and also in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and even further into the depths of Africa.

Kamares crater banquet vessel with decorative lillies

Phaistos.
Old-Palace period (1800-1700 BC)

Minoan maiden with prayer beads Fresco

Tray with handles and whirling motifs from Phaistos

Minoan pottery — frying pan with characteristic decorative spirals.

Iraklio Museum – Minoan pottery

Bronze female figure Late Minoan.

The Minoans were conquered by the Mycenaeans and this Mycenean octopus pottery from Thissus reflects the influence of the Minoans.

Kamaras libation vessel

Elegant ewer with reed type decoration that creates a pattern of dark and light colours on the surface of the pot.
Example of the decorative mannerism of the Late Neopalatial period, a work by the artist conventionally referred to, as ‘Reed – Painter’ (1450 BC).
Heraklion Museum

Three handled pitcher

Large lidded pot from Mochlos

Reproduction of a Minoan dolphin pot

Late Minoan Jar with Three Handles

Minoan Marine Style Pitcher

Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete

( Templar 1307 – flickr )

Mycenaean Krater ca.1400-1300 B.C.

Minoan Snake Goddess

Minoan wall art

Circumstantial evidence indicates that women played a dominant role in Minoan religion and perhaps also in Minoan society. Some believe that the Minoans lived in a matrilineal, or even a matriarchal, society.

Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete

Minoan eight handled amphora

Unbekannt Pottery Jar with Octopus Design from Knossos, Crete. Late Minoan period II c.1450 1400 BC Fine Arts Reproduction

Wendy Shirran with a three handled Amphora she made – Palace style, white earthenware with stained slips and terra sigelata, Late Minoan II, 1450-1400 BCE

Libation vase (rhyton) of serpentine, in the shape of a bull’s head with inlays of shell, rock crystal and jasper in the muzzle and eyes. Knossos. New-Palace period (1600-1500 BC)

Minoan Pitcher

Archeological Museum in Heraklion.

Minoan wall painting, Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete

1. The Boxer Rhyton. Steatite libation vase with relief scenes of boxing, wrestling and bull-leaping. Ayia Triada. New-Palace period (1500-1450 BC)

3. Steatite libation vase (rhyton), originally covered with gold leaf, with a relief representation of a shrine in a mountain landscape. Zakros. New-Palace period (1500-1450 BC)

( http://arctangent.smugmug.com )

Carved amphora vessel

Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete

Frieze of dolphins in the Cretan palace of Knossos

Spouted jar, Kamares Ware, Middle Minoan, 2000-1700 BC

Marine Style Ceramics of the Cretan-Minoan Neopalatial Period (c. 1650 BC to 1450 BC).

The Harvester Vase. Steatite ( soapstone ) libation vase (rhyton) with a relief scene of a procession of men led by a man holding a staff – an official or priest. They hold harvesting tools and sing to the accompaniment of the sistrum. New-Palace period (1500-1450 BC)