The Coming of the Greeksthe same levels elsewhere in the northern Peloponnese and on
the island of Euboea. Jeremy Rutter goes so far as to say that
the EH III gray ware "is universally recognized to be the direct
ancestor of MH Gray Minyan." 35 That is not literally the case,
since some scholars still adhere to Blegen's assumption that
Minyan Ware was suddenly brought into Greece ca. 1900 B.C.
by the first Greeks; but there is no doubt that the old view is
on the way out. It now appears that late in the third millen-
nium, potters learned how to make pottery that resembled sil-
ver vessels. The gray color and the highly burnished exterior of
the pots were important in producing this effect (the same
technique in imitation of gold resulted in "Yellow Minyan"),
and within a rather narrow range of shapes the new style
achieved a sudden popularity in the northern Peloponnese and
in Euboea. Rutter finds it likely that "production was in the
hands of a relatively small group of specialized potters, resident
at a number of sites, who had a monopoly on such technologi-
cal innovations as the fast wheel and the ability to achieve the
controlled reducing conditions necessary to fire this ceramic." 36
Early in the second millennium, production of the new pottery
spread rapidly into Attica, Boeotia, southern Thessaly, and
other places. Thus Minyan Ware no longer testifies to a Greek
Volkswanderung into Greece ca. 1900 B.C.
With the argument from pottery discounted, the case for
dating "the coming of the Greeks" ca. 1900 B.C. must fall
back on the fact that five mainland sites show a destruction
level at that date. 37 That is one more than can be counted at
1600 B.C., but one less than is attested for 2100 B.C. Since the
total number of sites with legible stratigraphy is not more than
ten at any of the three interfaces, we may safely assume that
quite a lot of destruction occurred on all three occasions. The
- J. B. Rutter, "Fine Gray-Burnished Pottery of the Early Hel-
ladic in Period: The Ancestry of Gray Minyan," Hesperia 52 (1983): 349. - Ibid., 351.
- The five are Argos and Berbati in the Argolid, Eleusis and
Haghios Stephanos in Attica, and Eutresis in Boeotia. See van Royen and
Isaac, Arrival, Table 2, at p. 57.