amphora
- Museum number
- 1881,0824.51
- Description
-
Neck fragment of a large pottery amphora in White Painted ware; wide cylindrical neck and flat, everted rim with a lug-like projection on one side; buff-pink clay with drab, cream slip decorated in purple-black paint: metopal frame of vertical bands and lozenges on one side (the other is missing) within which is a representation of a palm tree growing from a rectangular structure divided internally with crossing diagonal lines; a bird perches on the middle one of three branch-like features projecting from the structure; the same motif on the other side is mostly missing, except for the branches; swastikas in the field above and below the bird; parallel bands below the rim on the inside, on the rim are two groups of parallel strokes.
- Production date
- 950BC-750BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 15 centimetres (max)
- Curator's comments
- Part of the same vessel as GR 1881,8-24.52 (BM Vase C859). It was was found in a tomb the Ayios Ioannis area in the north-west part of the historic town of Larnaca (Reinach 1891, 175). See Nicolaou 1976, 169-181 and fig. 10 for other tombs in this cemetery found in more recent times. Also Fourrier 2015 for a more recent overview of the topography of the town.
See the comments of the excavator Max Ohnefalsch-Richter (1893, pl. 155,9). Benton (1961, 50 and pl. IV,3) identified the birds as turtle-doves and the square structure as a flower pot, not an altar as stated in the BM Vase Catalogue.
Bibliography:
Benton S. 1961, 'Cattle egrets and bustards in Greek art', Journal of Hellenic Studies 81, 44-55.
Fourrier, S. 2015, 'The Iron Age topography of Kition' in: Kyprios Character. History, Archaeology & Numismatics of Ancient Cyprus (kyprioscharacter.eie.gr/en/t/AY)
Nicolaou, K. 1976, The historical topography of Kition (Göteborg: P. Åström)
Myres J. and Ohnefalsch-Richter M. 1899, A catalogue of the Cyprus Museum (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Available free online via Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
Ohnefalsch-Richter M. 1893, Kypros, the Bible and Homer (London: Asher).
Available free online via Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
Reinach, S. 1891, Chroniques d'Orient (Paris: Firmin-Didot).
Available free online via Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1881
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1881,0824.51
