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Old Smyrna: the Corinthian pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2013

J. K. Anderson
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Extract

The following catalogue is divided into groups according to stratification. Brief descriptions of each piece and reference to similar vases from other sites are given in the catalogue. The chronological significance of the vases from the destruction level is discussed at the end of Section H.

A.Occupation Phase before the Curved Buildings

1. Plate 21. Fragment of rim of large krater.

Diameter about 0·30.

Very pale clay; dark-brown glaze; on the rim groups of short vertical lines; on the shoulder, panel containing hatched maeander; inside, rather streaky glaze varying from dark to light brown.

Weinberg holds that this type of krater developed during the Late Geometric period, but the term ‘Late Geometric’, as applied to Corinthian pottery, wants further definition. This piece must belong to the first half of the eighth century.

Both high- and low-footed examples are found.

Context: Trench H (Plate 74, Squares E-Gxi-xiii), Room XLI between floors at 8·90–8·40.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 53 , November 1959 , pp. 138 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1959

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References

1 The original manuscript of this paper was revised and greatly improved by the late Mr. T. J. Dunbabin. He either made or confirmed all the alterations to particular painters. He also added references to Perachora ii. Since Dec. 1952 I have been unable to consult most of the relevant literature, or to seek the guidance of those more learned than myself. I have therefore made as few alterations as possible to the text of which Dunbabin approved.

Mr. J. M. Cook gave me much valuable help and advice while I was working on the material in Smyrna Museum, and has since then sent to me photographs and drawings of pieces which I was unable to examine myself. Of these the most important is the oinochoe, no. 33.

Dr. R. J. Hopper examined photographs of the material and made a number of valuable suggestions.

The drawings are the work of Mrs. G. U. S. Corbett.

2 Corinth viii. i. 25–26 (this work is hereafter referred to as Corinth). Our piece is perhaps rather later than Corinth no. 73. Cf. also the group classed by MissBenton, as ‘Middle Geometric’ (BSA xlviii. 296, nos. 787–91)Google Scholar.

3 Cf. JHS lxviii. 68.

4 VS pl. 1, nos. 1, 2. Shear, , ‘Excavations in Corinth in 1930’ (AJA xxxiv. 403 ff., figs. 6–7)Google Scholar.

5 Perachora i. 59.

6 Robertson, in BSA xliii. 54, no. 20 (from the lower deposit)Google Scholar; MissBenton, , BSA xlviii. 279.Google Scholar Her no. 666 (pl. 42) closely resembles our no. 9.

7 Cf. Miss Benton, op. cit. 279 n. 165.

8 Perachora ii, nos. 449–51, from the Geometric deposit, from which aryballoi are lacking.

9 e.g. NS 1895, 137, fig. 14, 138, fig. 15, 151, fig. 37 (= VS pl. 4. 3).

10 Op. cit. 27 and pl. 5, no. 75. Rather later pieces from Ithaca are published by Miss Benton (op. cit. 301–2, nos. 842–50; ‘cup pyxides’). Weinberg (Corinth no. 120 and Hesperia xvii. 211, C. 9) gives some examples from Corinth,also rather later than ours.

11 The pieces in this group are from the floors of the curved buildings in the north-west part of Trench H, which appear to have gone out of use rather earlier than the others.

12 Cf. Robertson, op. cit. no. 298 (Ithacan copy of Corinthian).

13 e.g. Robertson, op. cit. nos. 22–23 (from the lower deposit at Aetos), and VS pl. 10. 1, from Anavysos.

14 VS pl. 6. 1; Mon Ant xxii, pl. 30a–c (from Cumae); Hesperia xviii, pl. 19. 26, r.

15 Cf. Robertson, op. cit. no. 246.

16 Mon Ant xxv. 554, fig. 140 (BSA xlii. 152, fig. 7b), a fragment of a kyathos with herons from Syracuse. (To the above references add now Miss Benton's discussion of kotylai, op. cit. 279.)

17 VS 48.

18 Op. cit. 51. Dunbabin adds Perachora ii, no. 471, with similar decoration in added red.

19 BSA xlii. 147, fig. 6a; a group of four birds of the later type with undulating lines on either side; this piece was found together with a kotyle with two water-birds and an Attic kotyle by the Lion Painter.

20 Cf. Miss Benton, op. cit. no. 681.

21 VS 77. The combination of rays and birds (VS pl. 17. 1) is very unusual.

22 Cf. VS pl. 17. But the decoration is of less importance than the increased height and slenderness of the vase, which our pieces are too fragmentary to illustrate.

23 For the absolute chronology see VS 179–85, especially 183, and Cook, op. cit. 151 ff.

24 VS pl. 6. 16. Stillwell, , AJA xxxvii. 607, fig. 3.Google ScholarPerachora ii, nos. 452–5.

25 AJA xliv, pl. 28. 1.

26 Cf. now Miss Benton, op. cit. no. 685. A serpent-kotyle of the later tall, slender shape from Tarquinii is published in Mon Ant xxii. 149, but in Dunbabin's opinion is probably Italian.

27 Cf. VS pl. 9, 1 and 2. Corinth no. 128. Hesperia xviii, pl. 20. 29.

28 Perachora i, pl. 13. 13. PAE 1911, fig. 16. VS 69 n. 9.

29 I have not myself seen this piece. Mr. J. M. Cook informs me that its fabric and glaze resemble those of the other imitations. For a similar Corinthian kotyle, dated by its context to the first half of the seventh century, see Young, , Hesperia Supplement ii, fig. 100, C. 16.Google Scholar Cf. also an early seventh-century example from Corinth, , Hesperia xviii, pl. 20. 29.Google Scholar

30 Besides our nos. 7 and 8, note Corinth nos. 112–15, found with nos. 108–10 (already compared with our no. 9). For examples from Corinth which must be contemporary with our nos. 48–52 cf. Hesperia, xviii, pl. 20. 20. Late Protocorinthian and Transitional kotylai with polychrome decoration, like our no. 47, were found at Perachora (Perachora ii, nos. 590, 592).

31 VS 8 and fig. 4. Robertson, op. cit. no. 59. Perachora i, p1. 123, 4, on the body of a large conical oinochoe. Kraiker, , Aigina: die Vasen d. 10. bis 7.Google ScholarJahrhunderts, pl. 8, no. 121.

32 Weinberg, , AJA xlv. 30 ff.Google Scholar

33 Corinth 46 (no. 157).

34 Cf. Corinth nos. 212–13.

35 Perachora i. 59–60.

36 This shape is discussed in VS 21 ff.

37 Corinth no. 143. Delos x, pl. 21, nos. 143, 145.

38 NC 23 and fig. 9c.

39 NC no. 191 (p. 279).

40 Cf. NC 297–8; Hopper op. cit. 231 f. Dunbabin believed this to be the earliest Corinthian kothon, with the possible exception of one in a German private collection (Neugebauer, , Antiken in deutschem Privatbesitz pl. 61, 147, on which see Hopper, loc. cit.).Google Scholar

41 Late Corinthian examples: AA 1936, 363 ƒ, figs. 17–19; also BSA xiv. 274 (from Rhitsona).

42 Burrows and Ure (JHS xxxi. 72 ff.) have proved that kothons can be used as lamps with a floating wick. But that they were in fact so used seems very doubtful.

One nearly complete kothon and several fragments were found at Corinth in a well (Campbell, , Hesperia vii. 594, nos. 135–8)Google Scholar, but this does not provide a clue to their purpose as they had evidently been thrown away.

43 NC 23 and fig, 8a on p. 22.

44 VS pl. 38. 2 and 3. NC 271, fig. 116.

45 NC nos. 208–25, 245, 565.

46 A 451–2 (CVA France 484. 20, 23).

47 Corinth nos. 204, 206, 226. No. 226 is no. 40 of Boulter's group (AJA xli. 217 ff.) and compared by him with his no. 39 (= Corinth no. 225) which is the Sphinx Painter's. Weinberg says that the drawing of Corinth no. 226 is slightly more careless, but the connexion is obvious and close.

48 NC 31 n. 1.

49 e.g. Robertson, op. cit. nos. 146–9, 151, 154. Brock, , BSA xliv, pl. 17. 10.Google Scholar

50 It is used by the Dodwell Painter on the neck of NC no. 861.

51 JHS xxx. 349. This grave also contained piriform aryballoi, one of which was almost identical with our no. 84.

52 NC 382 (CVA France pl. 598).

53 On the date of the White Dot style see Amyx, Corinthian Vases in the Hearst Collection at San Simeon.

54 CVA Poland pl. 6. 11.

55 AJA xlvi. 37, fig. 22; ADelt ii (1916) 34, fig. 26.

56 NC 76.

57 Ashmolean Museum, Report of the Visitors 1949, pl. 4B. Not by the same hand, but from the same workshop.

58 NC pl. 15. 5.

59 Sieveking-Hackl, , Die Königliche Vasen-Sammlung zu München 19Google Scholar, no. 274, and fig. 25 (= NC no. 343).

60 NC 985 (Sieveking-Hackl, op. cit. fig. 13). End of the Middle Corinthian period. See also Amyx, op. cit. 220, on the development of these creatures.

61 Herodotus i. 18.

62 Ibid. 20.

63 Ibid. 74.

64 Ibid. 16.

65 This article was already in proof when I had access to the important publication by Vallet and Villard of the new Corinthian material (LPC and Transitional) found by them at Selinus, (BCH lxxxii. 16 ff.).Google Scholar This inevitably reopens a twofold problem too great for discussion here, that of the absolute date for Selinus' foundation, and the chronology of Corinthian pottery in so far as it depends on that date. I have therefore omitted any discussion of Selinus from my text, and refer the reader to J. M. Cook's comments, p. 27, n. 71.

66 See also Hopper's chronological discussion, op. cit. 177 ff.

67 NC nos. 974, 974a. See also Hopper, op. cit. 224. Our fragments are of course quite unconnected with these rather fine, delicate vases.

68 In the publication of the Ionic black-figure pottery from the site.

69 Cf. NC 111. An alternative explanation is advanced by Smith, H. R. W. (Archaeology and the date of the Kypselids; University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology i, no. 10, 254 ff.Google Scholar) But see also Hopper, op. cit. 173, latter part of n. 43, in which it is shown that Corinthian aryballoi and alabastra continued to be imported into Rhodes during the first part of the Late Corinthian period—perhaps for the sake of their contents.