Unit:
Department of History and Archaeology
Title:
Fingerprints on Early Minoan Pottery: a pilot study
Languages of Item:
English
Abstract:
This paper is a pilot study of fingerprints in Early Bronze Age pottery from Crete. The assemblages examined come from the tholos cemetery of Ayia Kyraki (south central Crete) and the settlement at Myrtos Phournou Korifi (south east Crete). The number of surviving fingerprints on handmade pottery proved disappointingly small, particularly when unsatisfactory prints were excluded. Fingerprints appear to occur most, and survive best, on the inside of closed shapes such as jugs and jars, and in the two studied assemblages were more prolific on the harder fabrics than the soft ones. Fingerprints with sufficient ridge characteristics for positive matching do survive, in some cases with as many as eight or more characteristics. If pottery specialists could be encouraged to set aside sherds with fingerprints for recording, then the establishment of a database could in time begin to yield matches and therefore potential chronological links between assemblages.
Authors:
Keith Branigan
Yiannis Papadatos
Douglas Wynn
Journal:
The Annual of the British School at Athens
Publisher:
British School at Athens
Keywords:
Minoan Archaeology, Prepalatial Crete, Early Minoan, Pottery, Fingerprints
Main subject category:
Archaeology
Official URL (Publisher):
DOI:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30073183
