Part V. The Chronology of Late Helladic IIIB

The sequence of styles in the evolution of Late Helladic pottery is now well recognized. A sequence dating of finds is thus archaeologically possible. Absolute dating of finds, however, is another and more difficult question. Nothing Late Helladic has any absolute date of its own. We can, however, arrive at approximate absolute dates from Late Helladic pottery found in datable contexts in Egypt or from Egyptian objects found in Late Helladic deposits in Greece. But we cannot always be sure that Egyptian objects found in Greece are contemporary with the Helladic objects with which they are associated. For instance, in Tomb 518 at Mycenae, which is of L.H. I–II date, was found part of an Egyptian porphyry bowl which dates from the First or Second Dynasty. No one would for a moment believe that this Egyptian bowl and the tomb could be contemporary. There are similar cases from Asine and Knossos. It is logical that an early object can be found in a late context, but no one could ever accept that a late object can be found in an early context, unless there has been much disturbance of the stratigraphy.The three phases of Late Helladic III pottery A, B, and C can be distinguished among themselves with reasonable certainty, although there are always examples which stand on the borderlines. We know that the later Late Helladic IIIA pottery is contemporary with the Amarna Age, because it occurred in quantity in the ruins of Akhenaten's capital. Its latest absolute date is about 1375–1350 B.C., according to the dating placed by Egyptologists on the Amarna Age. There are even a few sherds from Amarna which, if found isolated, might possibly be called L.H. IIIB. Here again another possible difficulty can be glimpsed. A borderline sherd might be called by one archaeologist A and by another B.