Ras Shamra 1998 Overview

Mycenaean Pottery from Ras Shamra
Vassos Karageorghis

Four hundred ninety-six vases and fragments of vases made in or in imitation of the Mycenaean style found at Ras Shamra and Minet el-Beida by Claude F. Schaeffer are presently stored in the vitrines and basement of the Louvre. Most of these sherds (421) have never been published. The Louvre's collection almost doubles the number of published Mycenaean and Mycenaeanizing sherds found at these two sites. It also increases by almost one-quarter the number of known Aegean sherds discovered on sites and settlements on the Syro-Palestinian coast (Leonard [1994] catalogues just under 2200 Mycenaean and Late Minoan III vases). With the addition of the pieces in the Louvre, the material from Ugarit comprises close to half of the Mycenaean pottery recorded from the Syro-Palestinian littoral. That proportion continues to increase as publication of material recovered in the course of recent campaigns at Ras Shamra directed by M. Yon augments the known corpus.

Previous & Present Studies
The generally hard-fired, fine, lustrous-painted Mycenaean sherds stand out distinctly among the assemblage of coarse, mostly undecorated, local wares and it is clear that from the earliest years of' excavation on, Schaeffer recognized, collected, and publicized the Mycenaean pottery found in the course of his excavations. Illustrations of Mycenaean pottery finds, for example, appear prominently in the preliminary reports of the excavations, particularly the earliest campaigns (cf., for example, Schaeffer 1929: 18, fig. 1, pl. V; 193 1: pl. III; 1932: pl. II, IV, p. 4, pl. VII). Schaeffer's interest in the Mycenaean material lay in its possible uses as chronological and cultural indicator. In his view, the presence of pre-firing, non-Aegean marks painted on several of the Mycenaean vases was proof of resident Mycenaean ‘colonists’ producing their customary ware in regions outside mainland Greece, including possibly at Ugarit (Schaeffer 1933: 101-2; 1936a: 76-9, App. I; 1937a: 233-5). But that hypothesis apparently marked the limit of his analytical interest in Mycenaean pottery. Although his notebooks and the cartons of material stored in the Louvre attest to a continuing interest in Mycenaean ceramic finds, Schaeffer undertook no comprehensive study of the material. Thus his legacy is a mixed one: while it may be surmised that Schaeffer made some special effort to recover and set aside Mycenaean sherds, it is not at all clear how sustained and organized that effort was in the field or in the sorting and recording processes.