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The Distribution of Chiot Pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

R. M. Cook
Affiliation:
Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge

Extract

Distribution maps are fashionable among archaeologists, but they are not always used properly. It is not enough to mark the places where objects of a given class have been found; it is important to know also in what frequency they were found, where they have not been found, and where they have not been looked for. To collect this information is often difficult and sometimes impossible since so much excavation has gone unrecorded, and I have therefore chosen one of the easier subjects, the distribution of Chiot pottery in the late seventh and early sixth centuries B.C. Much Chiot pottery is fortunately distinctive, so that even the more conscienceless excavators have often identified it and thought it worth mention, and thus we have fuller data for its distribution than for that of most classes of archaic Greek pottery.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1949

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References

1 JHS 1924, 205–22: some revisions in East Greek Pottery, 15–9.

2 BAS XXXV, 157–61. The excavation by Eccles, E. of a cave at Ayion Gala has not been published, but Chiot pottery is reported (JHS 1939, 203).Google Scholar

3 The theory that Chiot pottery was made both in Chios and in Naucratis (so E. H. Wedeking, Archaische Vasenornamentik, 28) is a desperate compromise.

4 From a stemmed dish; bands on underside. Found in Aegina. For the photograph and permission to reproduce it I am indebted to Mr. N. Kotzias and Dr. G. Welter, for some notes to MrShefton, B.. Another piece that looks as if it might be of the same period is the fragmentary shield from Chios (BSA XXXV, pl. 37. 23).Google Scholar

5 According to the low chronology outlined in JHS 1946, 93–5: cf. Robertson, M., JHS 1940, 6 and 13–6.Google Scholar

6 Cook, J. M. (BSA XXXV, 187Google Scholar) observes that these goose-bills are very common in Attic in the second quarter of the seventh century and occasionally appear later.

7 E. Langlotz, Griechische Vasen in Würzburg, K 128 and 129, pls. 13–14 (by the kindness of the Würzburg Museum the front of K 128 is reproduced here as Fig. 1).

8 E.g., Naukratis II, pl. 6; JHS 1924, pl. 10. 5 (the other sherds on that plate—except perhaps no. 2—look a little later); CVA Oxford II, pl. 396. 2, 4, 6; CVA Cambridge II, pl. 496. 16–20, 31–2.

9 MA XVII, fig. 188 (a poor drawing). I have not seen the vase itself and judge from a photo.

10 Athens NM 995 (Beazley, J. D., Hesp. 1944, 50, Sophilos no. 10Google Scholar; AM LXII, pl. 59. 2). The earlier and lower chalice of the Vlasto collection in Athens (Beazley, ib. 44, Anagyrus painter no. 2, pl. 4) probably does not imitate Chiot. Two fragmentary Attic pots of about the 560's are nearer the final Chiot type, but the resemblance may be casual (Hesp. 1935, 248 no. 54, fig. 25; 1946, 130 no. 17, pl. 22. 1–2).

11 B.M. 88. 6–1. 456 (Naukratis II, pl. 6; A. Lane, Greek Pottery, pl. 17b).

12 1. B.M. 88. 6–1. 496. Glans and most of underside of penis preserved: length as made up 14·6 cm. A lip should be restored above the goats: opposite the goats the inside is smoothed and painted over. The glans is painted purple. From Naucratis. Plate 41b. The organ at the butt end seems to be the female pudenda.

2. B.M. 88. 6–1. 496 bis. Fragment of underside of similar but larger cup. From Naucratis.

3. Athens, Acropolis Museum 5043. Glans only preserved, and painted purple. Larger than 1. From the Acropolis, Athens. E. D. van Buren, Greek Fictile Revetments, 16 and 184 no. 7, figs. 49–50. (Prof. C. M. Robertson brought this piece to my notice.)

13 E.g., JHS 1924, pl. 10. 7–9, which shows the looser draughtsmanship of the Late style.

14 That is my impression from stylistic comparison with Corinthian. On the East Greek side the common types of lotus in our two styles are those of the Late Wild Goat style and only once to my knowledge does the succeeding Fikellura type appear (M. Lambrino, Vases Archaïques d'Histria, fig. 294). Grave groups help a little. 1. A chalice of the Chalice style with a very much decayed sphinx was found in a grave at Taranto in company with a Corinthian amphoriskos of the 570's. 2. A chalice of good b.f. style with cocks and hen occurred in the rich grave 50 at Rhitsona, the contents of which range from about 570 to the 540's (for this chalice, see JHS 1909, 332–4Google Scholar, fig. 15 and pl. 25; for the other contents of this grave BSA XIV, 257–64; for the date of the grave C. H. E. Haspels, ABF Lekythoi, 5, and also Beazley, J. D., Hesp. 1944, 57Google Scholar and H. G. G. Payne, Necrocorinthia, 60): and comparison with Corinthian cocks suggests that this Chiot piece might be about 570. 3. A plain chalice turned up in another grave at Taranto of about 580–570. 4. Another plain chalice was included in a tomb from Caere containing objects with a wide range of date but certainly going back to the second quarter of the sixth century (St. Etr.I, 161–3, pl. 38c). Compare also the remark of Lambrino (op. cit. 299) that sherds in reserving and incised technique were found together. R. Carpenter has argued that the letter Ω was not invented much before 575 (AmJPh 1935, 294–7); since Ω occurs in painted inscriptions on Chiot chalices, these chalices would then be dated not before about 590.

15 Polychrome decoration of the inside of chalices and some other shapes—a familiar criterion of Chiot—only becomes common at the end of the Middle Wild Goat phase: the Würzburg chalices, for instance, are plain inside.

16 The sherd illustrated by D. G. Hogarth, Excavations at Ephesus, fig. 54, is not (I think) Chiot.

17 I. Louvre A. 330 (1), with a Chalice style lion: S. Zervos, Rhodes, Capitale du Dodécanèse, fig. 38. 2. Louvre A. 330 (2), plain. 3. Copenhagen 5612, unslipped, with b.f. human figures: Kinch, K. F., Vroulia, 151 and pl. 46. 1Google Scholar; CVA Copenhagen II, pl. 80. 2.

18 P. Dikaios mentions other ‘Naucratite’ pottery from Cyprus (ib., 7), but his definition is wider than that used here.

19 The plastic head from Corinth in Heidelberg (H. Prinz, Funde aus Naukratis, fig. on p. 134) looks to me Clazomenian rather than Chiot.

20 Two sherds in Syracuse from Ortygia (Athenaion) may be from Chiot chalices of Wild Goat style, but T. J. Dunbabin who has seen them thinks not (Western Greeks, 475).