Talk:Minoan pottery
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[edit] Scope
This should expand what is in Minoan civilization giving more detail on the pottery. The chronology section should be expanded.Dave 13:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Note also the table and names as of this date need correction, clarification, expansion.Dave 13:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The useful artificially rigid serial organization
"Usefully conceptualized in this artificially rigid serial organization, actual ceramics show blends of styles, either attesting gradual shifts in style or the conservative instincts of apprenticeship-trained potters and their patrons."
- What? I can't seem to understand this passage. What styles would you say are being blended? Does that mean you might find EMI blended with LMIII? If so how is this sytem useful? And if it is artificial, and does not reflect the real chronology, how is it useful anyway? Moreover, how can it be rigid when no dates are assigned? And do you mean it ought not to be serial? Maybe the next layer down was not before the one on top but really after? I appreciate the desire to write nobly but I think one needs to be clear too. Well, I am going to leave this for now until I finish the table and finish giving more detail to the styles. I am not sure what I am going to do then but it ought not to stay. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Meanwhile if you would care to add some clarity I think the thing might shine better.Dave 01:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- The transparent meaning appears to be that Evans' structure of three periods each neatly divided in three with an A early and B late in every case is "artificially rigid" but "useful" and that in practice "actual ceramics show blends of styles" offering a suggested— and commonplace— reason for such stylistic overlaps in conservative training and taste. I see no further complications. --Wetman 04:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- Hercle, Wetman. Odds bodykins.Dave 21:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
- I probably shouldn't, but here I go. If the meaning was transparent we wouldn't be having this discussion, unless you mean my intellect is in deficit or your has a surfeit. Transparency produces an immediate act of "insight" (Lonergan, "Insight.") The rigidity, well, it never was that. As Jack Caskey once explained to me, "Early looks a little earlier and late looks a little late." I don't see any rigidity at all in "early" and "late." He was the first on the scene, you know, Evans was. As for useful, useful for what? No one ever speaks of a useful Minoan chronology because it is too fluid, non-rigid, variable and uncertain. It raises more questions than it answers. Ventris and Chadwick, "Documents in Mycenaean Greek", "It is not easy to arrive at an understanding of the way in which earlier Minoan scripts originated and developed.... Archaeologists are not in full agreement about the relative dating of the objects...". It seems that what looks early to one doesn't look early to another. Not too useful, compared to, say, dendrochronology, which Evans did not have. As for the blend, blend of what? There have to be some unblended styles before there can be blended styles or how would you know the difference? You say you see no further complications. I agree with you totally. I don't see any complications at all; in fact, I don't see that anything at all is being said, which is why, in the absence of any knowledge of what it means, I didn't see where to put it.Dave 21:16, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] More!
This article is going to be length-limited but it hardly scratches the surface. But, it really is quite interesting. I can see possibilities for "Minoan figurines", "Minoan Seals", "Minoan architecture" or "Palace Architecture", "Minoan frescoes", "Minoan ships", "Homeric Crete", "Minoans abroad", "Crete in World War II". The wealth of material on the Internet shows us that people are interested in the story of the civilization. Civilization series books always manage to get a volume out on them. This topic is a chess game waiting to happen. If you're addicted to Wikipedia, try a shot of Minoan Crete. Ho, you'll be at it for a while. When I get this to a certain point I am going to rotate away elsewhere.Dave 21:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Length
I triggered the length message, which I knew I would do eventually. My plan is to move the big table and notes to "Minoan chronology". There isn't much choice if we are going to have a more detail on the chronology. Meanwhile the reader has that excellent right-hand table summary in "Minoan Civilization." If necessary I don't see much problem in breaking this article up into discrete units. The topic can easily "grow" in this way, we just have to be careful that everything gets linked together.Dave 11:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
