{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01758366420873511, 'fraction_numerical': 0.009926262053318207, 'mean_word_length': 4.829752066115702, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Thera and Mycenaean Greece

Excavations at Thera have brought to light artifacts which show connections with the incipient Late Helladic culture of the Greek mainland, as represented by the royal shaft graves at Mycenae and by a few contemporary finds from other sites. Some of these objects are similar to one another; others look like versions of well known and much admired common prototypes or like renderings of possibly frequent and apparently familiar events; a few may be called identical. Theran beaked jugs found at Mycenae, specimens of the so-called leatherware jugs1 and ostrich eggs made into vases belong to the first category. Intrinsically interesting, they simply suggest that the two cultures were not alien to each other or that certain art forms and techniques were derived from a common, probably Minoan, source which could well have acted as an intermediary between two otherwise unrelated civilizations. All the other parallels, however, speak clearly of frequent and direct connections between Mycenae and the Aegean. The inlaid daggers from Shaft Graves IV and V have a simpler but no less ornamental counterpart on Thera.2 The miniature fresco from Room 5 of the West House in Akrotiri,3 clearly a narrative of a naval expedition led by the owner of the house, contains an episode not unlike the scene embossed on the silver Siege Rhyton from Shaft Grave IV.4 Both representations are incomplete but there is no doubt that they depict maritime raids against cities situated somewhere on the Mediterranean shore. Significantly, the raiders wear Mycenaean armor and, on the Theran fresco at least, the fleet is commanded by a captain with pronounced mainland features5 like those portrayed on the amethyst sealstone from Shaft Grave Gamma6 (short hair with hanging forelock, a straight, rather short nose and a pointed beard). Two tantalizingly incomplete fragments of a somewhat later stone vase found in the Maleatas sanctuary near Epidauros7 show in relief a similar event. The similarities among these works of art are too strong and the undertakings they portray too specific for their common points to be fortuitous. Most important in this respect are, however, the artifacts of our last category. The earrings worn by one of the saffron-gathering girls on the fresco from Ashlar Building 3 at Akrotiris are identical to the pair found in Shaft Grave III.9 A beaked jug from Shaft Grave Nu'O and a spouted jug from Theral" are both decorated with a broad zone of large double-lined spirals stemming from solid triangles over closely spaced horizontal bands. Such spirals occur also on a basin from Keos.12 Another jug from Thera13 bears the same motif, the difference being that the spirals on it are broken, as they are also on a large bowl from Phylakopi.14 As both Marinatos'5 and Mylonasl6 observed, the shape as well as the decoration are doubtless Cycladic. The jug from Shaft Grave Nu is surely an import from the islands, most probably from Thera itself. Even more striking is the similarity of the flying swallows decorating a beaked jug from Shaft Grave Gamma,17 those on three jugs from Thera18 and one from Phylakopi.19 All vessels are, no doubt, the work of the same Theran vase painter inspired, most probably, by the Spring Fresco from Room A2. Finally, the leatherware jug from Room A17 in Thera,20 decorated with a bird stylized to abstraction,21 has a twin, obviously made by the same potter,22 found in an MH-LH I burial tumulus at Kleidi near Samikon in the NW Peloponnese.23