large Minoan Octopus Stirrup Jar | the apex of the Marine Style

The original Minoan Octopus Stirrup Jar is a pinnacle of the Late Bronze Age Marine Style. Dating to ca 1500-1450 BCE, it is displayed as a centerpiece in the Neopalatial Galleries of the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete.

It was excavated in by the pioneering American archaeologist Harriet Boyd Hawes, one of the first female field archaeologists in history, and the first woman ever to direct a major international excavation in Greece. She discovered the ancient town of Gournia and systematically excavated it between 1901 and 1904 on behalf of the American Exploration Society. This spectacular piece was found during her final excavation season, unearthed not in a wealthy palace storage room, but within what had been a wealthy residential house in the bustling, prehistoric coastal town, proving that high-end Marine Style art was enjoyed by the elite merchants of the Minoan thalassocracy, not just by the royalty at Knossos.

Standing at approximately 28 cm high, a stirrup jar features a unique engineered design: a false central neck topped by a horizontal bar handle that looks exactly like a horse's stirrup, flanked by a separate, narrow pouring spout on the side. This clever design was highly prized in antiquity for storing, transporting, and precisely pouring precious, expensive commodities like wines and perfumed olive oils.

The entire spherical surface is treated as a deep ocean canvas! Set against a warm, golden-buff slip background, the master artisan painted a massive, highly detailed dark red-brown octopus. The creature's bulbous, stylized head is positioned directly between the handles, with its large, piercing eyes staring out aggressively. Its eight magnificent, fluid tentacles explode outwards, wrapping around the contours of the vessel, alongside smaller motifs of sea urchins, coral, and seaweed.

By using the dynamic, twisting curves of the octopus tentacles to emphasize the roundness of the vase, the Minoan craftsman created a sense of continuous underwater motion. Quite brilliant!

Flourishing on Bronze Age Crete ca 3000–1100 BCE, the Minoans were a vibrant, colourful and innovative civilization that celebrated the beauty of life, nature's rhythms, and the sea which surrounded them.

Their extraordinary artistic output reflects their love of the natural world. Their sprawling palaces, most famously Knossos, Malia, and Phaistos, were adorned with breathtaking frescoes characterized by fluid lines and vivid colors. Instead of grim battle scenes, these murals depicted graceful leaping bulls, blue monkeys, and delicate saffron crocuses. Their creativity extended to their exquisite pottery, which featured dynamic motifs of octopus and coral wrapping around clay vessels, reflecting a sophisticated society deeply in tune with its environment.

This intimate connection with nature was inextricably linked to their mastery of the sea. Developing a formidable thalassocracy, the Minoans dominated the Aegean as unparalleled seafarers. Their advanced sailing vessels, elegantly depicted in frescoes at Akrotiri on Santorini/Thera, carried olive oil and fine ceramics across lucrative trade networks across the Mediterranean world, returning with exotic ivory and gold.

This flexible and intelligent creature relates to the psyche, to emotion and to intuition.

The Minoans depicted the octopus on their pottery and in their jewellery, clearly intrigued by this silent, graceful creature, unfurling its tentacles, moving slowly through an element that is itself constantly in motion.

An octopus makes camouflage to protect itself against predators and, if necessary, can detach a limb, which in turn will regenerate. Its ejection of black ink is designed to confuse, delude and deter.

This pottery collection is produced in Greece in the workshop of the Lioulias family, with whom It's All Greek is privileged and proud to have been working since 2004. They also produce our lovely Minoan pottery and fresco pieces, and a small collection of bronzes.