A stirrup jar is a type of pot associated with the culture of Mycenaean Greece. They have small squat bodies, a pouring spout, and a second nonfunctioning spout over which the handles connect like a stirrup. During the Late Bronze Age, they were used in the export of oils, and are found in large numbers at sites around the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. The term "stirrup-jar" is a translation of German "Bügelkanne", the name assigned to them by Heinrich Schliemann who found the first instances during his excavations at Troy.
Development
Despite its association with Mycenaean Greece, the stirrup jar has been argued to be a Minoan invention. H. W. Haskell, a theorist of the later 20th century, proposed that it originated in the Middle Bronze Age as a one-time invention intended to reduce wasteful pouring of expensive fluids. While earlier pouring vessels needed to be turned nearly upside down, pouring from a stirrup jar requires merely holding it by its stirrups and tilting it.. Haskell's view was based on MM III jars found at Kommos (Crete) and Kea (island). From there it passed to the Cyclades, and only later to mainland Greece. Mycenaean stirrup jars were highly standardized, but Minoan and Cycladic examples vary greatly.They are all Furumark Form 46, which he reserved for the stirrup-jar, but he further distinguished 22 types, FS 164–185.
Artistic features
Stirrup jars were decorated in a variety of designs. The stirrup jar offers two basic zones for decoration, the body and the shoulder. These are defined by concentric bands of color around the bottom and the top of the vase. The bands are present on nearly every stirrup jar, whether the canvases are painted or not. Sometimes the bands cover the entire body, and are the only decoration. These designs were achieved by applying slip while the pot was leather-hard or also after partial firing. After the final firing, the design became an integral part of the indurated surface.
Archaeological context
Stirrup jars have been found at archaeological sites throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region, including those in mainland Greece, the Cyclades, Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, Asia Minor, and Ancient Egypt. "In addition to its appeal at home, the stirrup jar (with its valuable contents) was traded widely beyond the shores of the Aegean sea, having been found at sites from Sardinia to Syria and from Anatolia to Nubia." In short, the type is primarily associated with, and is a diagnostic of, Mycenaean Greece. It is known from the entire Mycenaean Period from Early Mycenaean (Late Helladic and Cycladic I and II) through all phases of the Late Mycenaean (Late Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan III)."Mycenaean" is not an archaeologically defined period name. The civilization was named by Schliemann in the early days of Greek archaeology, who excavated even before Evans. The first credible archaeological periodization was Evans', who devised Minoan I, II, III, etc. It was extended by Blegen, as a result of the excavation of Pylos, to Helladic and Cycladic, so that all the I's, II's, III's, etc., were roughly synchronous. This periodization still applies. "Mycenaean" came in after the Greek imperial character of the sites was known. It saved having to refer to the single culture with a multiple name: LH, LC, LM, etc. For example, "Mycenaean III" means LH, LC, and LM III. For an example of the effective use of "Mycenaean," read
Evidence from Linear B documents indicates that stirrup jars were used as containers for olive oil. Speculations as to other contents have been made, but are generally unsupported. The most common, wine, had its own battery of containers from serving and drinking ware (cups, mixers, bowls, etc.) to transport vessels, the amphorae, which are generally larger and more plentiful than stirrup-jars. Wine was apparently more plentiful. Oil requires a significant investment in olive trees, which cannot be harvested for several years after planting. A third suggestion, perfume, is not compatible with the small quantities placed in perfume jars, which are always very small. The relatively large stirrup jars would represent unrealistically huge amounts of perfume.
Noting that the stirrup jars of which he knew from the excavated houses of Mycenae and elsewhere had a capacity of 12–14 L, Ventris, decipherer of Linear B, hypothesized that one stirrup jar was designed to hold one liquid unit, which he took to be “the convenient figure” of . Using a density of olive oil of 0.917 kg/L obtains a weight of about for a full jar, to which must be added the weight of the jar. As this is not a convenient weight for decanting or table use, the jars that came to Ventris's attention were probably of the transport type; that is, intended for export. Furumark's FS 164 is between and high and between and maximum diameter. A full jar was probably not lifted by the stirrups alone, as this practice would risk a disaster. As for amphorae, one might suppose wooden racks and loading nets lifted by cranes.
Fine ware stirrup jars
The early stirrup-jars were not distinguished by special type; i.e., the sizes and shapes varied within a maximum height of . They were all from "domestic deposits," yet some had features suggesting export: instead of the two stirrup handles, a disk supported by three handles, and a true spout with two or three horns (we should say lugs) on its sides. The lugs could be for lashing down a cloth (Homeric kredemnon) over a stopper (no stoppers have been found). The disk had one or two holes on the edge, possibly for ties holding a stopper or a shipping tag. Haskell suggests an identity tag marking the owner.
By LM I B, the smaller Cretan jars had developed into one of the two subsequent major types, the "fine ware", which Haskell proposes spread to the rest of the eastern Mediterranean: LH I B, LC I A, etc., and the equivalent periods on Cyprus and Rhodes. Those cultures were predominantly Mycenaean. Before then, while Knossos was still under the Linear A administration, the stirrup jar moves into the Cyclades and is found at Akrotiri before the volcanic eruption. The smaller and finer instances were found in the living spaces. The storerooms contained larger and coarser stirrup jars. Haskell hypothesizes that the smaller were used for decanting from pithoi and for temporary storage.
What makes a stirrup jar "fine" is the grain size of the clay. Powdered clay results in a smooth surface. "Coarse ware", or coarse texture, means a surface similar to that of oatmeal, composed of larger grains, formed by admixture with quartz (sand) and particles of other minerals.
Transport stirrup jars Haskell developed his idea of the larger, coarser type of stirrup jar found in storerooms at Akrotiri into the "transport stirrup jar", a vessel serving as a standard container for the export of olive oil, and perhaps other valuable fluids as well. The neutron activation analysis performed by the British Museum sparked a field-wide interest in the topic and the method. A number of research groups were to assume the challenge of refining the technique and applying it to other caches of stirrup jars to more fully ascertain its provenance and uses in trade. A challenge had been thrown down earlier questioning the validity of some of Evans' excavation at Knossos and his date for the invasion of Knossos by Mycenaeans, based on a supposed late date of the stirrup jar (see below under issues).
The Kommos sherds
Contemporaneously with Haskell's theoretical work and the British Museum's neutron activation studies, excavations were being conducted at Kommos on the southern coast of Crete by the University of Toronto, 15 years of excavation in all, ending in 1995, which turned up thousands pieces of what looked like export and import pottery. The excavators and theorists of this effort adopted Haskell's term of "transport jars". Kommos was an LBA (Late Bronze Age) port networking extensively with Egypt and the Levant.
Following the lead of the British Museum, the project archaeologists decided it would be illuminating to the subject of trade contacts and relationships to conduct neutron activation studies of the origin of this pottery. Accordingly, they prepared powdered samples of 18 stirrup jars, 13 short-necked amphorae, 34 Canaanite jars, 19 Egyptian jars, and 4 others subsequently reclassified, 88 in all, covering the span LM I B through LM III B. The stirrup jars covered LM II through LM III B. The goal was to test non-random geographical hypotheses about the compositional profiles of the samples; that is, the provenances, as had the British Museum.
The actual grouping by composition was done in advance by thin-section petrography, in which microscopically thin sections of the sample are mounted on a slide for visual inspection under a microscope. The grains of the fabric can then be identified mineralogically and the sample classified according to the types of minerals found. The study found 26 fabrics concerning which hypotheses could be tested by neutron activation and analysis of variance; that is, for each group, were the samples in it randomly or not? The cross-identification between fabric type and geologic region was assigned by inspection. The cross-identification between region and elemental profile was an outcome of the methods chosen for statistical manipulation of the profiles. These are beyond the scope of this article, but the theory is as follows.Interested persons of some statistical knowledge may find more detail in
Imagine an ideal clay bed in which the same elements are found at the same concentrations in every sample at random. In a sufficient number of samples, the measured concentrations are expected to vary at random (defined mathematically) around a mean. If any do not, then the sample comes from a bed containing higher amounts. By comparing every element to a control element, presumed ideal; that is, at measured concentrations varying only at random, the investigators developed one or more profiles that were non-random.
The first problem was to find a control element that was always present in the same concentration, varying only randomly. The investigators selected 27 elements for study, which might be presumed to be in every clay bed. Only 16 of these were chosen for statistical analysis, as the most reliable and representative. As a control, or ideal, element, the investigators chose Scandium, a low-presence element that had the second-lowest variability. The variation of each element in all the samples was calculated and compared to that of Scandium. If it exceeded that of Scandium by a specific threshold, then the element was judged present in some sample in a non-random amount. Further analysis pin-pointed which samples. The end result was a series of nine elemental profiles, each representing a bed of unique chemical composition. They were termed “Cretan chemical groups” I through IX.
There was obviously not a one-to-one match with the 26 fabrics. The investigators chose the multi-fabric solution: more than one fabric might belong to the same chemical group. The fabrics could then be grouped by chemical similarity in a dendrogram (which had no implications of descent). Some of the conclusions they drew are:
The nine types are divided into Cretan (I–III) and import (IV–IX). All the Egyptian and Canaanite jars except two are from beds along the Nile or on the coastal plains of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. The two are apparently imitations of Canaanite jars in Cretan clay. None of the stirrup jars or short-necked amphorae are imports.