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Skyphos with orientalizing decoration, confronted sphinxes. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Conservator Jean-Françoise de Laperouse, restoring Orientalizing skyphos (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Skyphos with orientalizing decoration, confronted sphinxes
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 91
- Date
- Ca. 575-550 BC, Lydian
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 7078
- Museum Inventory No.
- 7078
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- P61.535
- Material
- Ceramic
- Object Type
- Pottery
- Pottery Shape
- Skyphos
- Pottery Ware
- Lydian Painted - Orientalizing
- Pottery Attribution
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- PN
- Trench
- PN
- B-Grid Coordinates
- W245 / S380 *86.86 - 86.56
- Description
- More than of the vessel, including most of body and all of foot and handles, restored (by J.-F. de Lapérouse). Cream slip over which decoration in dark sepia/yellow brown slip, and white slip. Exterior decoration: handle zone (only one side partially preserved), confronted sphinxes flanking a central lotus ornament, all resting on a narrow ground line; below, false meander pattern flanked by broad bands in dark with superposed narrow bands in white; on lower body, voided rays separated by stemmed buds. Restored height 0.208 m, restored mouth diameter 0.26 m.
- Comments
- Recovered from an extramural occupation quarter at Sardis (excavation sector PN). Affinities with Aeolic orientalizing decoration were suggested by Hanfmann (Hanfmann 1962, 23), perhaps because both the skyphos decoration and Aeolic orientalizing vase painting share broadly conceived, boldly rendered images; but the skyphos decoration is probably neither drawing style, and specific iconography suggests that the skyphos decoration owes little or nothing directly to Aeolic vase painting styles, which are admirably presented in Iren 2003.
- See Also
- Greenewalt, “Lydian Pottery”.
- Bibliography
- Hanfmann 1962, 23, fig. 16.
- Author
- CHG