History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 1 (of 2)Walters, H. B. (Henry Beauchamp)
History
History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 1 (of 2)
Walters, H. B. (Henry Beauchamp)
Mythology, Classical, in art; Pottery, Ancient; Pottery, Etruscan; Pottery, Greek; Pottery, Roman
Among the Painted Pottery by far the most widely-spread local fabric is
that styled by Mr. Myres the =white-slip ware=, which appears in the
tombs of the later Bronze Age, and is more than any other associated
with Mycenaean vases. In cemeteries such as Enkomi, Curium, and
Maroni[834] it has been found in large quantities in almost every tomb,
and its range is not limited to Cyprus. The characteristics of this
ware are a black gritty clay, worked very thin, and a thick white
creamy slip with which it is covered both inside and out; it is
exceedingly brittle, and perfect specimens are comparatively uncommon.
The ornament is laid on in a black pigment, often turning to red by the
action of fire; the most common form is that of a hemispherical bowl
with a flat triangular handle, notched at the apex. Almost the only
other forms are a long-necked flask or bottle of the lekythos type and
a large jug with cylindrical body (like an _olpe_) and a flat
thumb-piece above the handle.
Mr. Myres[835] points out that the scheme of decoration seems intended
to imitate the binding and seams of a leather bowl; it usually consists
of a band of various patterns (lattice-work, zigzags, lozenges, or
lines of dots) round the rim, from which similar bands descend
vertically, but do not meet at the bottom. Similarly the handle seems
intended to represent two pieces of flexible wood bound together. In
the case of the jugs the patterns follow a similar principle, giving
the effect of a decoration in panels to the upper part. Specimens of
this ware are given in Plate XI., Nos. 5, 6.
Beyond the confines of Cyprus isolated specimens of this ware have been
found at Athens, Hissarlik, Thera, Lachish in Palestine, and at Saqqara
and Tell-el-Amarna in Egypt, in the last-named instance along with
Mycenaean vases.[836] The resemblance of some white-slip wares to the
Dipylon vases is not a little curious.[837] But it can hardly be
thought that the one influenced the other.
The other local painted wares are by no means so common. They are, in
fact, almost limited to specimens of an unpolished _white ware_, with
fine cream-coloured clay, on which patterns such as groups of straight
or wavy lines, chevrons, chequers, and triangles filled with hatched
lines are painted with a pigment varying from dull black to dull red.
The commonest forms are one-handled bowls and small bottles, either
globular or sausage-shaped. The latter are distinguished by often
having long tube-like spouts attached and by the numerous perforated
projections for the attachment of strings, handles being generally
absent at first, but when they are introduced the projections remain as
an ornamental survival. In a few isolated specimens the surface is
covered with a polished slip. Others again are covered with a _black
glaze_,[838] on which are painted in dull red groups of short parallel
lines, which (as Mr. Myres points out) seem to have been executed at a
single stroke with a cluster of brushes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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