• latw-77-1
    Streaky-glaze skyphos with reserve band. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)

    Streaky-glaze skyphos with reserve band

    Date
    Ca. mid-6th c BC, Lydian
    Museum
    Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 8150
    Museum Inventory No.
    8150
    Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
    P95.023
    Material
    Ceramic
    Object Type
    Pottery
    Pottery Shape
    Skyphos
    Pottery Ware
    Lydian Painted - Streaky
    Pottery Attribution
    Site
    Sardis
    Sector
    MMS
    Trench
    MMS-I 93.1
    Locus
    MMS-I 86.1 Locus 109
    B-Grid Coordinates
    E151 - E163 / S55 - S66.5 *99.6 - 98.2
    Description
    Ceramic skyphos. Thin-walled conical foot, swelling body turning in slightly to plain rim. Two slightly upturned horizontal handles. Interior and exterior painted with slightly matte streaky-glaze, leaving an unpainted zone at the handles. Sets of three white bands at bottom of foot, below handle zone on exterior, below rim on interior and in center of interior (these quite worn, from use?). Mended, almost complete. Height 0.102 m, diameter of rim 0.109 m.
    Comments
    This type of skyphos (also called a kotyle) is derived, like the column krater (No. 73), from the Corinthian shape, and is among the most common type of Lydian drinking cup (see Greenewalt, “Bon Appetit”). Unlike the column krater, however, the streaky-glaze skyphos is common at Sardis in levels of the seventh century BC, and seems to represent an earlier adoption of Greek shapes by the Lydians. It was used perhaps not only for wine but for general consumption of liquids and perhaps solids as well. The vases were painted with a brush while the pot spun on the potter’s wheel, leaving an unpainted band around the handles, where the potter had to lift the brush.

    From the court of a Lydian house (Area 4-6, with Nos. 67, 70, 71, 76, 79, 89, 98, 99).

    See Also
    Greenewalt, “Lydian Pottery”; Greenewalt, “Bon Appetit”; Cahill, “Persian Sack”.
    Bibliography
    Greenewalt et al. 1995.
    Author
    NDC