• m10-cor-21-10
    View of fragments. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
  • m10-cor-21-20
    Drawing: profile. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Middle Protocorinthian Linear Kotyle Fragments

Date
Ca. 670-650 BC, Lydian
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
P63.635a
Material
Ceramic
Object Type
Pottery
Pottery Shape
Kotyle
Pottery Ware
Middle Protocorinthian
Pottery Attribution
Site
Sardis
Sector
HoB
Trench
HoB
B-Grid Coordinates
W20 - W22 / S99 - S102 to *96.80
Description

Probably MPC-II. Eight fragments, four of them joined, from a nearly complete kotyle. One of the handles is preserved, the other is broken at the stump. The foot is missing. One fragment is burned. A wall fragment (P63.635B:5859) and a handle (P63.635C:5859) were originally inventoried with this kotyle but do not belong to it. Exterior: a single thick line of glaze on the handle. Two horizontal lines appear near the top of the rim. Below, in the handle frieze, a series of vertical bars frames a group of wiggles (the lower portions of five remain). The vertical bars cross over the horizontal lines at the top and bottom, and over the stubs of the handles. Twelve horizontal lines below cover about one-third of the body. Attenuated rays, spaced fairly far apart, decorate the lower body. The tips of the rays pass up and over the lowest of the horizontal lines.

Interior: a single thin line in the reserved area of the rim. The remainder of the interior is completely glazed. Some throwing lines are visible. Glaze: exterior, dark brown, thinning to light brown on the vertical lines of the handle zone; interior, dark brown and consistent. Clay: fine, smooth, and hard. Yellow-buff in hue except for the burned fragment. Munsell no. 10 YR 7/4 (very pale brown); burned fragment, 10 YR 6/2 (light brownish gray).

The greater violation of the horizontal framing lines dates this piece later than Cor 13, although still in MPC (supra, "Kotylai with Linear Decoration," 13-14).

Dimensions
P.H. 0.06; diam. 0.10; Th. 0.003
Comments
Cf. Burr, “Geometric House” 507, fig. 26, no. 106 for a kotyle with attenuated rays and deteriorated wirebirds that probably dates in the experimental period from the end of EPC through MPC-I. This kotyle has a greater portion of the body covered by the lines than does the example at Sardis, and the rays do not impinge on the horizontal lines. A pointed kotyle published by Brokaw (Brokaw, “PC Kotyle” 53, figs. 4, 24) and dated to MPC-I shows sigmas in the handle frieze. One-third of the body is given over to horizontal lines and a glazed base. Cor 21 should date later than either of these examples.
See Also
Bibliography
Author
JS