jars, not being imports, can only have been intended for export. Issues of the stirrup jar The stirrup jar has been a key topic in the scholarship of the LBA, perhaps because of its specialized nature. Beginning before the LBA, and ending after, it has endured through some major changes in civilization. Change of language is generally considered to be a major cultural change. When the stirrup jar began on Crete, its administrative citizens used a syllabary termed by Evans Linear A, reflecting a yet unknown language, probably not Indo-European, sometimes called "Aegean". At some point in the LBA Linear A was replaced by Linear B, another syllabary representing east Greek. One of the major issues regarding this change is when it occurred, a second being how. At some point later, east Greek stopped being spoken in the Peloponnesus and on Crete, while writing disappeared in Greece. When history began to be written in a new alphabet centuries later, verbal tradition covering the gap was telling of an invasion of illiterate west Greek speakers from central Greece, a destruction of Mycenaean civilization, and a replacement or subjugation of the East Greeks in the Peloponnesus. A new population on the coast of Anatolia told of being driven across the Aegean by invaders. Issues of this second cultural change are when and how this replacement occurred. To some the dark age seemed to wipe the slate of Greek culture clean. All the old ways and artifacts seemed to have disappeared or to have been highly modified. The stories of political events during those times were discounted as unreliably legendary, having no primary record. The art seemed to have begun anew. The change seems somewhat unusual, as large populations of east Greeks, such as the city of Athens, were little touched by the change and should have left some continuous record. The darkness and discontinuity of the dark age began to be questioned, which is a third type of issue. List of stirrup-jar sites Crete A number of inscribed Kydonian stirrup jars have been recovered from several archaeological sites on Crete. Rhodes Early examples of the stirrup jar have been recovered from Rhodes dating to c. 1200 BC. Mycenae From the Panagia Houses I and II, twelve LH III B globular, decorated stirrup jars of two sizes, a smaller, fine-ware, and an intermediate-size of variable grain texture. Gallery Science and the stirrup-jar Stirrup