EARLY INDIAN PAINTED POTTERY. by D. H. Gordon. Journ. Indian Soc. Oriental Art, XIII (1945), 35. (Antiquity, Vol. 21, Issue 84) (1947)

REVIEWS
tombs of the Bylany culture round Kolin. While the Platenice urnfields occupy eastern
Bohemia, the richer centre of the land is taken up by the Bylany cemeteries. These
comprise relatively poor cremations in urns, large graves containing half-burned skeletons
either alone or with an inhumation, and spacious shaft-graves under barrows containing
skeletons, normally extended but occasionally contracted. All the latter graves are richly
furnished and often contain joints of pork. A few among them are genuine royal tombs
and contain hearses. Dr Dvoihk describes in detail five such graves that he himself
excavated as well as a dozen or so similar tombs observed earlier and less accurately.
Thanks to careful digging and precise observation the author has been able to recover
many details in the construction of these four-wheeled hearses and, what is most surpris-
ing, the yokes to which the horses were attached. The wheels with 6 to 8 spokes measured
80 to 82 cm. in diameter while the tyres were studded with iron nails and slightly wider
than the felloes, the naves of wood plated with iron. The yokes of oak wood partly
cased in leather were richly decorated with a mosaic of bronze nails and were carved at
both ends. One at least was regarded as so valuable that it had been wrapped in linen
and encased in a wooden box before burial.
Now in at least three graves three bits*werefound of which two in each case belong
to Gallus’ type 11. The yokes are actually long enough to allow of three horses abreast
but it seems more likely that the third bit, which is usually found some distance from the
other two and is often of rather different pattern, stood for the war-horse that would
doubtless be led to the grave in the funeral procession. He is of course thus represented
on Hallstatt urns and on. an ivory sheath as well as in Greek and Etruscan funerary
scenes.
The grave-goods include further many vases graphited or painted in colours, long
iron Hallstatt swords, a lug axe, and those curious clay crescents generally termed ‘ Moon
Symbols ’, but hardly ever a fibula. Apart from this negative trait, the ritual and furni-
ture with which these Bohemian kinglets were buried agrees very closely with those
long familiar from the plundered Chieftains’ Graves of southwest Germany, Switzerland
and eastern France. From this agreement DvofSk and Filip draw the conclusion that
the Hallstatt rulers of Central Bohemia were already Kelts though their subjects included
members of an Urnfield population. The justice of their conclusions is confirmed by
reference to the r81e of pork in the funerary feast ; in view of the prominence of swine
among the historical Kelts including the Parisii of Yorkshire. (That is of course not a
trait peculiar to Kelts-joints of pork are reported for instance from cremation graves of
the Bordei-Heristrhu culture in Roumania which is just pre-La T h e and presumably
Thracian or Agathyrsian). V.G.C.
EARLY INDIAN PAINTED POTTERY. By D. H. GORDON.Journ. Indian Soc.

Oriental Art, XIII (1945), 35.
In this study CoI. Gordon draws attention to the danger of thinking in terms of a
‘ Painted Pottery Period ’ in Indian prehistory, since the technique of pottery painting
has lasted little changed in North-West India until the present day. Such an idea has
long been exploded in Europe, and would hardly be held by reputable Oriental scholars
even in India, but the warning may be valuable to the amateur. Gordon refers to the
late Brig. Ross’s invaluable work at Rana Ghundai (now published in Journ. Near
Eastern Studies v (1946), 284-316), but seems to under-rate the Buff Ware and Red
Ware grouping of Iranian prehistoric wares and their Indian counterparts-a broad
distinction which we own to McCown and seems to the reviewer not only the only
reasonable basis for classification, but one which really does make sense in the light of
219
ANTIQUITY
increasing knowledge from India. The comparisons between Hissar I and Rana Ghundai
11 have been considerably strengthened by the new material published by Ross, and the
‘ archaistic ’ wares of Bampur and Khurab cited by Gordon in this connexion are not
really relevant, their affinities being with those of Shahi-tump, a site which can hardly
be early than Akkadian. For the Nineveh v-Tell Billah chalices with animal friezes
quoted by Gordon, McCown’s remarks should be noted (Comparative Stratigraphy
of Early Iran (1942),p. 48, note 88).
The survival of painted pottery traditions in Western India is a matter of great
interest : at Ahichchhatra the fine black-on-grey painted wares seem likely to be IV
century B.c., and Sassanian textile patterns were copied in the VI-VII centuries A.D. by
pot-painters in the Quetta region, which gives an approximate dating-point in an other-
wise rather vaguely ‘ post-prehistoric ’ series. But after all, in Sind, as the late Ernest
Mackay pointed out, pottery painted with good Harappa Culture designs was being made
a few years ago, so we may have to be more than usually chary about making chronological
equations in a country so conservative as India. STUART PIGGOTT.
EXCAVATIONS I N T H E CUENCA REGION, ECUADOR. By WENDELL .C.

BENNETT.pp. 84, 17$gs.
The Cuenca Region in the southern Andes of Ecuador has been known chiefly for
the large hoards of indigenous pre-Colombian gold and copper work which have been
found there. Remains of the subsequent Inca occupation, notably the town of Tome-
bamba on the site of Cuenca itself, have also long been known. Recently a scientific
excavation (1) in the Cafiar Basin at the northern end of the area has established the
existence of a culture, called the Cerro Narrio, stable for a long period before the Inca
conquest, whose outstanding characteristic is red-on-buff pottery, some of it of fine
quality. Most of the metalwork undoubtedly belongs to this culture, which is ascribed
to the historic Caiiaris.
Dr Bennett has surveyed several groups of sites, near Cuenca and to the south of
it, and has excavated some of them, finding in most cases quite a thin deposit, yielding
little except sherds. As a result he has shown that the distribution of the Cerro Narrio
culture extends southwards at least to a short distance north of Cuenca, and that it can
be divided into stages, one of which is probably earlier than anything found at the type
site. He has also found a later thick ware style of uncertain age, which extends well
to the south of Cuenca. A summary of Ecuadorian archaeology, which is given at the
end, is designed only to put the excavations in their proper perspective and not to
supersede Collier’s recent work in the new Handbook of South American Indians (2).
It contains some useful suggestions, but the absence of any specific relationships between
Andean and coastal cultures (in spite of some statements to the contrary which have
appeared) renders the sections dealing with the coast somewhat irrelevant.
BRITISH GUIANA ARCHAEOLOGY T O 1945. By CORNELIUS OSGOOD.pp. 65,

I 3 $gs*
Little is known about the archaeology of British Guiana beyond some few coastal
sites and a number of petroglyphs occurring inland along the rivers, the latter being, as
usual, an unsatisfactory source of information owing to the impossibility of determining
Survey and Excavations in Southern Ecuador, by D. Collier and J. V. Murra. Field Museum,
Anthropological Ser., xxxv, 1943.
Handbook of South American Indians, 11. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 143,1946.
220

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EARLY INDIAN PAINTED POTTERY. by D. H. Gordon. Journ. Indian Soc. Oriental Art, XIII (1945), 35. (Antiquity, Vol. 21, Issue 84) (1947)

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REVIEWS

EARLY INDIAN PAINTED POTTERY. By D. H. GORDON.Journ. Indian Soc.

EXCAVATIONS I N T H E CUENCA REGION, ECUADOR. By WENDELL .C.

BRITISH GUIANA ARCHAEOLOGY T O 1945. By CORNELIUS OSGOOD.pp. 65,

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