3. Cilt - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

DatingAmber is a material which was particularly popular in the 2nd millennium B.C.Thousands of beads originate from the Grave Circles at Mycenae and from othersites in the Peloponnese 11 .With the decline of the Mycenaean world after 1400 B.C., amber lost itssignifi cance, and disappeared during the so-called Dark Ages, only then toreappear in the second half of the 9th c. B.C. in Cretan fi nd contexts.The amber fi nds from the Artemision originate from a late Geometric – earlyArchaic context, but only a few criteria can be extracted which point to their genesisin this period: The forms of the beads can be traced back at least to the LateBronze Age. The disc-form and fl at-biconic types have been found particularly inMycenae. The triangles are equally diffi cult to date on the basis of formal criteria.The triangle is an elementary form from prehistoric times onwards and have someBronze Age comparanda: made out of carnelian with one simple diagonal borehole.They originate from Georgia 12 . Other examples are found on a reconstructednecklace from Toptepe, today in the Museum of Uþak. They come from an archaiccontext, but the triangular beads may be older as is suggested in the publicationof the Lydian Treasure 13 .Both of the heads belong formally and stylistically to the art of the late geometric/early archaic period from the island of Crete. They can be compared –in spite ofdiffering materials and scale– with the bronze sphyrelata from Dreros: like these,the heads display a clearly defi ned relationship of the individual elements of theface and the taut articulation of forms with small, pointed nose, thin lips and chinwhose form resembles a tongue.(36) At the moment we are working on the reconstruction of these linkedtogetheramber objects. The picture presented here is, therefore, a preliminaryone: it shows a Goddess with polos and jewellery of numerous strands, whichreproduce the forms of the amber objects.11 Mastrocinque op.cit.57ff.12 Unterwegs zum Goldenen Vlies. Archäologische Funde aus Georgien. A. Miron–W. Orthmann(Ed) (1995) 229 with fi g. 65 and 322 with fi g. 352.13 Ý. Özgen–J. Öztürk, Heritage Rediscovered, The Lydian Treasure (1996) 158 Fig. 110.18