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Stamped Pithos-Fragments from Cameiros
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 October 2013
Extract
When I was in Athens during the session of 1903–4, Mr. Bosanquet handed over to me for study from the collection of antiquities in the British School a number of pithos-fragments decorated with bands of ornament in relief. Two of these (Nos. I., II. Figs. 1,2), the only ones showing exclusively geometric designs, form the subject of the present paper, the others I hope to publish subsequently. The pithoi, of which they are fragments, were enormous barrel-like jars of earthenware, used for storing corn, wine, oil, etc. They were frequently large enough to hold a man (e.g. the ‘tub’ of Diogenes was a pithos), and ranked as immovable furniture, being in general, either wholly or partially sunk in the ground. Apparently they were constructed in sections, the joins being cemented and concealed by raised bands of clay (in principle not unlike the hoops of a barrel), decorated, as was only natural, in some rapid mechanical way. In the earliest times this decoration consisted of incised lines, later, a mould or stamp was used to print the ornament either directly on to the clay before firing, or on to bands previously cut out, which were then cemented on to the surface of the vase; finally a method of decoration almost ideal for its purpose was supplied by the introduction from the East of engraved cylinders, which by simple rolling along the clay produced a continuous recurring pattern.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1906
References
page 71 note 1 I desire to express my gratitude to Prof. Bosanquet and Mr. Dawkins for much kind help especially in verification of notes, etc., since my departure from Athens, also to the authorities in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, who have kindly afforded me every facility for a detailed study of the stamped pottery under their charge. The reproductions of the fragments are from the careful drawings M. Gilliéron.
page 71 note 2 Numbers of them were discovered in the magazines of Knossos by DrEvans, , B.S.A. vi. p. 22, Fig. 4.Google Scholar
page 71 note 3 In the vase-painting reproduced by Walters, , History of Greek Pottery, ii. p. 97Google Scholar, Fig. 126 Eurystheus is seen taking refuge from Heracles in a sunk pithos.
page 72 note 1 As we see from the eight-spoked chariot-wheel on a Rhodian amphora with stamped decoration in the British Museum (A 585). V. infra.
page 72 note 2 In No. I. the shapes of the spirals and the connecting vertical ridges are identical in the first and fifth coils, showing that a cylinder engraved with four coils was employed.
page 72 note 3 Most of the examples (apart from the Etruscan) have been collected by Pottier, , Monuments grecs, ii. 1888, pp. 54–9.Google Scholar To the list there given must be added the fragments from Datscha published by Dümmler, , Athen. Mitt. xxi. pp. 229–236Google Scholar, one from Melos (Pollak, ib. Taf. V. 1), and the Cretan instances mentioned Athen. Mitt. xxi. 3 (cf. Savignoni, , A.J.A. 1901, p. 404).Google Scholar
page 73 note 1 As Prof. Bosanquet points out to me, the grain of the cylinder would be vertical.
page 73 note 2 No. I. (11·6 cm. high, 17·6 cm. wide, and 2·8 cm. thick) is of dark reddish clay, and evidently formed part of a large pithos. No. II. (13 cm. high, 11 cm. wide and 2·6 cm. thick) is of reddish clay with a large admixture of white.
page 74 note 1 Possibly a second row of the same decoration, as on a pithos from Cameiros in the British Museum with markedly similar ornament to that of our fragment.
page 74 note 2 Figured by Pottier, , Vases du Louvre, i. Pl. XI. A, 288.Google Scholar
page 74 note 3 Exact provenance uncertain. Possibly Halicarnassus.
page 74 note 4 Athen. Mitt. xi. Beilage 1 zu S. 16, A 4.
page 74 note 5 = British Museum fragment A 592.
page 75 note 1 In these instances the spirals are decidedly Mycenaean.
page 75 note 2 Candia Museum, Nos. 1177, 1199, 12–8, 1576.
page 75 note 3 See Dümmler, in Athen. Mitt. xxi. pp. 230–4.Google Scholar Cf. below, p. 78, notes 7 and 9.
page 75 note 4 Furtwängler u. Loeschcke, Mykenische Vasen, Text, p. 3, Fig. 1.
page 75 note 5 I have not seen (6), which is in Berlin.
page 75 note 6 It must be noted, however, that Pottier, , Vases du Louvre, i. Pl. XIII. A 396Google Scholar, reverses the impression of (4), giving the hooks to r.
page 76 note 1 Op. cit. x. 65.
page 76 note 2 Ib. xxxvi. 375.
page 76 note 3 Ib. xxxv. 358, etc. Cf. the early Corinthian skyphos mentioned below, and the Melian amphorae.
page 76 note 4 Ib. xxxv. 350. Cf. the similar form on a P.C. vase published Notizie degli Scavi, 1893, p. 468.
page 76 note 5 The hatchings represent the same idea as the herring-bone.
page 76 note 6 Furtwängler, u. Loeschcke, , Mykenische Vasen, xxxiv. 343.Google Scholar Cf. xxxiii. 332, a ‘later’ production, where hooks at three angles assume fantastic shapes.
page 76 note 7 Joubin, , B.C.H. 1892, p. 295.Google Scholar
page 76 note 8 Furtwängler u. Loeschcke, op. cit. xxxvi. 377.
page 76 note 9 In Berlin. Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 135, No. 2940.
page 76 note 10 Athen. Mitt. xii. Taf. VI.
page 76 note 11 The swastika seems akin to this windmill labyrinthine decoration, if we consider the forms which it takes on the Euphorbus pinax (British Museum, A 749 = Salzmann, Nécropole de Camiros, Pl. LIII.), in particular that with the rounded corners and the bract-like excrescences on each arm; these latter quite possibly represent an original counterbalancing spiral.
page 77 note 1 Jahrbuch ii. Taf. 4.
page 77 note 2 Nat. Mus. 313.
page 77 note 3 To whom I am indebted for the drawing reproduced in the text.
page 77 note 4 Athens, Nat. Mus. 250–2; British Museum A 56.
page 77 note 5 Athens, Nat. Mus. 353.
page 77 note 6 Cf. the Cyrene amphora published Arch. Zeit. 1881, Taf. 10. 1; a Proto-Corinthian lekythos shown Notizie degli Scavi, 1895, p. 156, Fig. 43; and another published Arch. Zeit. 1883, Taf. 10. 1; also, for the general idea, a Leyden vase figured by Conze, Anfänge der Kunst, Taf. III. 1. We may also compare the double hatched triangle friezes on two stamped fragments from Cameiros (British Museum 
and A 586) which apparently come from the same pithos as the fragments published by Salzmann, op. cit. Pl. XXVII. 4, 5.
page 77 note 7 Notizie degli Scavi, 1895, p. 190, Fig. 93.
page 77 note 8 Cf. the fragment, Athen. Mitt. 1895, Taf. III.
page 77 note 9 Stackeiberg, Gräber der Hellenen, Taf. IX.
page 77 note 10 E.g. Nos. A 745, 748–50, and 754 in the British Museum, J.H.S. 1885, Pl. LIX.Google Scholar
page 77 note 11 Arch. Zeit. 1882, Taf. 9.
page 78 note 1 As on aryballi from Cameiros in the British Museum (A 1057, 1058).
page 78 note 2 Cf. the British Museum vase A 471.
page 78 note 3 Conze, Anjänge der Kunst, Taf. III. 1.
page 78 note 4 Athens, Nat. Mus. 1st Vase Room, Case 8, Tomb 85.
page 78 note 5 Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art, vii. Fig. 91.
page 78 note 6 Pottier, , Vases du Louvre, i. Pl. II, A 288.Google Scholar
page 78 note 7 Cf. the Datscha fragment Athen. Mitt. xxi. p. 230, Fig. 1.
page 78 note 8 I.e. the British Museum fragments 
and A 586, and those figured by Salzmann, Nécropole di Camiros, Pl. XXVII. 4, 5, and Pl. XXVI. 1. The decoration of the last is almost identical with that of the above-mentioned fragment from Datscha.
page 78 note 9 Cf. the second Datscha, fragment Athen. Mitt. xxi. p. 232, Fig. 2.Google Scholar