• latw-73-1
    Column krater. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)

    Column krater

    Date
    Ca. mid-6th c BC, Lydian
    Museum
    Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 6601
    Museum Inventory No.
    6601
    Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
    P86.046
    Material
    Ceramic
    Object Type
    Pottery
    Pottery Shape
    Column Krater
    Pottery Ware
    Lydian Painted - Streaky
    Pottery Attribution
    Site
    Sardis
    Sector
    MMS
    Trench
    MMS-I 85.1
    Locus
    MMS-I 84.1 Locus 34
    B-Grid Coordinates
    E143.9 - E144.5 / S68.6 - S69 *100.36
    Description
    Ceramic column krater. Small flaring ring foot. Ovoid body with wide mouth, low flaring neck, horizontally everted rim. Two vertical loop handles from shoulder to rim, protruding just above rim. Body wall very thin at bottom, thickening at top. Red and black streaky-glaze on interior and exterior. White bands and strokes on rim, white dots at junction of neck and shoulder, three white bands on body and foot. Mended. Height 0.233 m, diameter of rim 0.300 m, diameter of shoulder 0.282 m.
    Comments
    From a Lydian house destroyed in the mid-sixth century BC (Area 1, with 16, 62, 64, 65, 66, 68, 72, 75, 81, 87, 88, 96, 97, 100, 102, 103, 137, 138), with amphora No. 72, and other vessels for eating, drinking, and cooking. The column krater is originally a Greek shape (known to the Greeks as a “Corinthian krater”), originating in Corinth near the end of the seventh century BC. Its introduction into the Lydian pottery repertoire ca. 600 BC comes during a period of other changes and introductions, such as the lydion, marbled ware, Lydian lamps like No. 88, and a number of other new features that appear, early in the reign of Alyattes. The Lydians adopted the early form of the Corinthian krater, where the handles join the rim directly; later column kraters in Corinth have separate handle plates, but these are not found in Lydian pottery (see Bakır 1974, 23).
    See Also
    Greenewalt, “Lydian Pottery”; Cahill, “City of Sardis”; Greenewalt, “Bon Appetit”; Cahill, “Persian Sack”.
    Bibliography
    Greenewalt et al. 1988, 64.
    Author
    NDC