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“Asia Minor Light-Colored Ware” plate with cross. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
“Asia Minor Light-Colored Ware” plate with cross. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
“Asia Minor Light-Colored Ware” plate with cross
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 220
- Date
- 6th - early 7th c, Late Roman
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 5347
- Museum Inventory No.
- 5347
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- P67.002
- Material
- Ceramic
- Object Type
- Pottery
- Pottery Shape
- Plate
- Pottery Ware
- Asia Minor Light-Colored Ware
- Pottery Attribution
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- BS
- Trench
- BS 67
- Locus
- BS Locus BS-E 1 (Area of)
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E6 - E10 / S0 - S2 *97.35
- Description
- Small plate. High ring foot, sharply carinated shallow body. Decorated in champlevé technique, with cross within decorative bands. The carved decoration is notably off-center. Diameter 0.13 m, height 0.035 m.
- Comments
- “Asia Minor Light-Colored Ware” is a distinctive and very finely made late-Roman variety of pottery with a light-red-to-pink fabric and darker red slip; it is occasionally decorated, like this piece, in champlevé technique, carefully carving away the surface of the vessel after firing (Hayes 1972, 408-410, pl. XXIIIa, which is this example); Rautman 1995). Both the vessel shapes and surface decoration take their inspiration from fine table silver of the sixth and early seventh centuries. This small champlevé plate and related vessels with figural decoration would have been seen as luxuries when brought to Sardis from their as-yet undetermined place of production.
From Byzantine Shop E1, one of a row of small commercial and working spaces that lined a major avenue on the west side of Sardis. Many of the finds from these shops and contemporary houses across the street (the House of Bronzes, e.g. No. 222) reflect the prominence of Christianity in the sixth and seventh century city, while other objects from the shops attest a strong Jewish presence among the local inhabitants. The Synagogue at Sardis, the largest Jewish meeting hall known from antiquity, stood nearby. Both shops and Synagogue seem to have been abandoned, with many of their contents intact, early in the seventh century AD (see Greenewalt, “Introduction”).
- See Also
- Greenewalt, “Introduction”; Byzantine Shops..
- Bibliography
- Hanfmann 1968, 17; Crawford 1990, E 1, figs. 175-178.
- Author
- NDC, MLR