Lefkandi-Toumba cemetery study season 2004

Assessment and Analysis: Study season

A three week study season was undertaken at the Museum of Eretria. During this period four specialists and a graduate student were involved in studying material from the Toumba cemetery. The study season was entirely supported by the Packard Humanities Institute. The objective of this year's work was to finish the study of metal finds and beads; this was successfully achieved. The study at the Museum was necessary especially for the iron objects which are in poor condition due to corrosion or because they were burnt in the funeral pyres. The glass and faience bead assemblage is clearly dominated by large quantities of faience disc beads, found in many tombs and in great quantity. It is common to find hundreds of disc beads in a single tomb, for example in Toumba tomb 59 more than 5,500 disc beads were found. When threaded, they make a 'necklace' of more than 12 m long. Much lower numbers of other types of beads were found, although still distributed between different tombs. Mycenaean beads are only present in the earliest burial of the prominent female burial found in the Toumba building. Two faience beads of a standard Mycenaean type (elliptical ribbed, lozenge shaped with diamond pattern) were part of the necklace of the female burial which was made up mostly of golden beads. Among the other beads found in the cemetery, there is one remarkable large triangular glass bead with three inlaid circular eyes. Round glass beads of medium size with a band of oblique stripes in two colours around the body and further inlaid circular white bands around both ends belong to the few glass beads with more elaborate decoration. Several large, cyclindrical glass beads have a dense feather pattern. Some large drop-shaped pendant beads are made of soft faience. Almost 100 gold ornaments and fragments were examined microscopically to determine the range of techniques and assembly methods used. This will help us to better understand the continuity and development of jewellery technology in Greece between the Mycenaean and Geometric periods. Indeed the technology of the Lefkandi jewellery and the sophisticated use of amber and rock crystal support other recent research in suggesting not only the continuity of Mycenaean gold working traditions well into the first millennium BC, but also that other European links must be considered as well as the generally assumed rekindling of contacts with the East. On a more local level the range of assembly method and variations in tool types permit us to gain some idea of the number of workshops involved in producing the ornaments for a single burial and may eventually provide some help in relative dating. Some of the jewellery had been much worn in life; other categories of ornament showed no signs of wear and were probably made expressly for burial. Although analysis of the jewellery was not possible, the colour variations of the gold suggested that the jewellery was made from natural 'as mined' gold-silver alloys. The scarcity of visible platinum group element inclusions is noteworthy and must reflect the gold sources. In August 2004, Professor E. Peltenburg spent one day in the Museum of Eretria studying the faience vessels found in the Toumba cemetery. He reports that eleven large-scale faiences, comprising vessels and a recumbent animal figure, were recovered from Toumba cemetery, Tombs 39, 42, 51 and 59. The monochrome vessels include bowls, a duck askos and grape, pomegranate and ring flasks, most with black linear decoration on blue backgrounds. Many were initially published with brief commentaries in BSA 77 (1982) 242-4. More recently, they were considered stylistically in the general context of faience production. Investigation of the objects in 2004 concentrated on technical issues. The vases may now also be grouped according to macroscopic characteristics of their glaze carriers. Thus, some were made with an intermediate white slip (sometimes postdepositionally altered to yellow), an Egyptian practice designed to enhance shape articulation and colour hue. Others possess blue-tinted cores, and yet others have fine black and red grit inclusions. While none of these features require us to postulate an Egyptian origin, the first two characteristics point to Egypt as the ultimate source of this revived Iron Age expertise.

Active in 2004.