Category Archives: Pottery

Tasting food from the past: Minoan style

Tonight we went to the INSTAP Study Center of East Crete and had a typical Minoan meal from the Bronze Age. Jerolyn Morrison, a researcher at the center, took the time to prepare the meal for us even though she is working on the last chapter of her dissertation. We tried the following dishes prepared with the methods used during the Neopalatial period: rabbit in white wine sauce and juniper berries, lentils with wild garlic leeks and honey, and octopus in beer and cinnamon and juniper.

Researchers, like Jerolyn, are able to identify meals and dishes prepared during the Neopalatial period from chemical residue analysis and macroscopic analysis. Jerolyn prefers to use macroscopic findings to support her research because it involves specific evidence such as animal bones, preserved seeds, and leaf imprints found on mud brick. In addition, researchers also look at frescos and vases to fill in the blanks for food lists.

Originally trained as a potter, Jerolyn was able to replicate the cooking scene. The clay pots here we’re made in 2009 out of clay from Mochlos. Originally, Jerolyn had used other clay but the pots cracked and didn’t last as long. Instead, she used the type of clay the Minoans used at the time and it has proven to be durable.

The basic Minoan cooking pot is a tripod shape, with three legs supporting the bowl. The reason why they made their pots in that style was because the vessels elevated the pot so that way they could have a portable hearth.
Overall the meal was wonderful! And I found it interesting how cooking can help us understand ourselves as people and the evolution of our identities through by looking back and then recreating our interpretation of the past.

Artists, Ancient and Modern

For me, Monday was full of thinking about art and its many incarnations on Crete and beyond. We spent the afternoon following the journey of a pot at the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, an administrative center out of which excavations are run. Besides helping archeologists with the administrative parts of setting up an excavation, the center is also a place to process finds. First, an incoming piece of pottery from a place like Mochlos is washed and laid out in pieces on a large table.
Then, as sherds of the pot are identified (like puzzle pieces), they move on to a new artist – the conservator. She carefully reconstructs the pot with tape, glue and patch ceramic, using a range of technologies like X-rays along the way. Next, a pot might head to the artist’s studio. There, another creative person handles the ancient work, this time to accurately reproduce the pot in a book drawing. Ink drawings used to prevail, but now the art is all done on a tablet. Now the pottery, despite the many artists who have worked on it, likely does not go to a museum. Instead, it is labeled and stored in a giant basement among the other finds.

This trajectory is certainly not what a modern viewer has come to expect for a piece of artwork, including a Minoan pot. As many of us remarked at dinner, this art is approached differently, both in the Minoan world and in the world of archeology. Despite their communal goal, to recreate the work of the ancients, the staff at INSTAP are certainly individual artists. Likewise, I think we have all noticed the artistry of repeating Minoan designs (for example, sea creatures), even though ancient artists were privileging just a few pop images over the individuality we often value today. It’s a fascinating subject that was wonderful to discuss with my classmates, whose broad range of majors (History, Art History, Classics) brings to light ideas I never would have imagined as we enjoy the Cretan food that I’ve grown so attached to.

Minoan Culture Then and Now

For me, the greatest struggle of this trip is not to somehow clear plate after plate of delicious Greek food during meals or to stay awake during all the amazing (but tiring) activities we do, but to comprehend the culture of the Minoan civilization. I find it too easy to dismiss the Minoans as primitive, especially when touring the ruins of palaces and towns. After packing up and leaving the hotel at Sitia, we visited the settlement on the island of Mochlos, which includes ruins from the Byzantine, Hellenistic, Mycenean, and Minoan periods. We saw several features of Minoan architecture that we are now well acquainted with: a pillar crypt, some ashlar masonry, and a group of house-like tomb structures. Then Bryan pointed out a triangular purple stone in the floor of one of the buildings and talked about a pagan religion that was founded in the 70s and worships Minoan deities, particularly the Cretan Mother Goddess. A group of goddess-worshipping women visits this site and others, where they perform their own religious rituals. It was surprising to hear how such an ancient civilization still influences contemporary culture in such a profound and direct way.

A short drive and several ABBA songs later, we arrived at the INSTAP research center in Pacheia Ammos. Eleanor Huffman took us on a tour and showed us the process all the artifacts go through before they’re published. They collect the fragments and sort them based on where they were found, then they meticulously try to piece them together and draw the finished (or partially finished) product – a process that is now fortunately digitalized. The most intriguing aspect for me was how thorough the researchers were in using all the parts from the excavation site: not only do they analyze pottery sherds but also bones and even the soil. Eleanor mentioned that once when analyzing soil, a researcher found some parts from olives and used radioactive carbon dating to determine when the olives were picked. The basement was full of shelf after shelf of labeled and crated artifacts. Someone asked what the process was for discarding artifacts and Eleanor responded that nothing is discarded. Every single find remains in the basement or is sent to a museum.

Understanding the process by which artifacts are found and restored and how the ancient culture continues to shape peoples’ lives helps me comprehend that the Minoan civilization was more complex than the ruins suggest. And now when I walk into a museum and see a pieced together vase, I’ll think of the work that was behind restoring it and appreciate it much more.

Archaeolgical Museum of Sitia and Petsofas

Today’s visit to the Archaeological Museum of Sitia was an opportunity to view the amazing finds from archaeological sites in Eastern Crete such as Mochlos and Palaikastro. The Palaikastro Kouros is an ivory figurine found burned and in fragments in a shrine room at the Minoan town settlement of Palaikastro. The discoloration of the burning makes it clear the Kouros was burned after being broken, perhaps deliberately. This intricate and exquisite object has fascinated archaeologists and art historians due to to its aesthetic virtuosity. Some archaeologists even speculate it may have been a cult statue of a young Zeus, who, according to myth, was born on the island of Crete.

Not only modern archaeologists speculate about the usage of unusual found objects. The Archaeological Museum of Sitia also displays pygmy hippopotamus skulls and a pygmy elephant tooth found on the island from approximately 80,000-50,000 BCE. Some archaeologists believe that ancient people who saw these unusual skulls may have misinterpreted the hole where the elephants tusk would go as something else entirely: a single eye socket, thus explaining the origins of the mythological Cyclops.

We ourselves were archaeologists today when hiking up to the Peak Sanctuary of Petsofas, where thousands of pottery fragments serve as visual evidence for the many ancient pilgrimages to this sacred site. Investigating and imagining what the sherds originally belonged to, for example a human figurine or a vase, was a fun and exciting exercise!

Relaxing after our investigation of the Peak Sanctuary at Petsofas

Reconciling Ancient and Modern Crete

This trip we have not only been learning about ancient Greece and its inhabitants but also about the experience of modern Crete and the interactions of the island’s people with their rich history. We visited a weaving workshop in Zaros and met with Kyria Maria, who crafts her own designs, ones inspired both by ancient and modern motifs.

We also met with a potter who emulates the ancient pottery techniques but also creates his own modern designs.

Vassilis Politakis creating a clay vase on the electric wheel

These designs and themes remain similar across time, with the meander and rolling waves patterns, the octopus and dolphin images. Even the theme of the flora and vegetation of the island remain common embellishments like they do in Minoan wall frescos and pottery. There is a entire industry that thrives on producing replicas of famous archeological finds and I wonder how many of these artistic tropes and themes are a product of Greece capitalizing on what tourists expect to see and be able to purchase for their own mementos and how much of it remains in the artistic canon because of pride in their heritage. We have asked numerous people whether they consider themselves Cretan or Greek, and many responded that they are a Cretan first and a Greek second. This immense pride is evident in everything they do from creating textiles to producing olive oil and I’m sure that many of these artistic choices are deliberate in order to keep the Cretan spirit alive. Even with a history of 800 years of continuous occupation, the language, culture, and art of Crete has thrived and remains a core part of their identity today.

As an Art History and Classics double major, it’s extremely easy to only focus on the ancient side of things and forget that life continued beyond the second century A.D. This trip is not only about visiting as many archeological sites as possible but about experiencing the lives of the modern Cretans.

The Spirit of Greece

We spent the afternoon of January 17th in a potter’s workshop located outside of the Knossos archaeological site. The Spirit of Greece is run by Vassilis Politakis, who has officially been in this business since 1990, but comes from a family of ceramic artists. Vassilis specializes in recreating the pottery of the Aegean and Cypriot Bronze Age, focusing his talents mainly on the shapes and decorative techniques of the time of the Minoan palaces.

Our session with Vassilis started out with a brief chemistry lesson, during which he explained how clay is created, and how combining different metal oxides and organic matter into the original form can result in various colors and provide the clay with plasticity. The resulting clay is then kneaded and set upon a wheel to be thrown into the desired shape. The potter’s wheel was ‘revolutionized’ in ancient Greece around 1950 BC, and it consisted of a large ceramic disc that rotates atop a vertical wooden. The wheel was kept in motion entirely by the potter’s assistant, unless fitted with a piece for the potter to kick it into motion.

After explaining the process of creating the base of the pottery, Vassilis theatrically demonstrated how painted designs take a black or red color, using the same pigment material. Vassilis has a background in puppetry and theater, and he created five main characters to explain the three basic steps of firing. First off, red dirt containing traces of iron is mixed in with the ashes of wood and water to create a red paste that is consequently used to the draw figures on the pottery. The decorated pottery is then placed into a kiln, and is exposed to air that passes through the vent, changing the color of the base clay from its original grey to the red we see in its final form. This is the first step of firing, also known as oxidization. The second step, the reducing phase, consists of depriving the kiln of oxygen, forcing the production of carbon monoxide in place of carbon dioxide. This reaction changes the color of the entire pottery to black. The thirds and final step is re-oxidizing, allowing oxygen to flow back inside the kiln. The pottery absorbs this oxygen, allowing it to revert back to its red color, and the areas that are decorated stay black because the sintered surface was no longer able to absorb oxygen on account of the presences of the ashes.

Below are the characters that Vassilis used to theatrically explain to us the process of firing described above.

(From left to right: Mr. Fumes, Black-Iron Man, Ms. Ashes, Red-Iron Man, and Mr. Wind)

Clay can only exhibit permanent physical and chemical changes when fired in a kiln, after which it converts to its final ceramic form. The firing of the clay can reach temperatures of approximately 1150 degrees Celsius. Interestingly, the entire black figure process is reversible, if the pottery is inserted into a kiln that is hotter than 1150 degrees.

Creating pottery is a fascinating process, and I find it extremely interesting to note that the potters of the past did not have a the same knowledge of chemistry that we do now, nor any tools which measure and control temperature. Their entire work was basically trial and error, and one must appreciate their ability to create the beautiful pieces that we have recovered today.

(Image of Vassilis working)

Crete 2014

Wellesley College Blog for our January course in Greece