• m10-cor-67-10
    Overview of shoulder fragment. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Fragment of a Corinthian Transitional Vessel of Uncertain Shape

Date
Ca. 630-590 BC, Lydian
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
P85.048
Material
Ceramic
Object Type
Pottery
Pottery Shape
Uncertain
Pottery Ware
Corinthian Transitional
Pottery Attribution
Sector
ByzFort
Trench
ByzFort 85.11
Locus
ByzFort 85.11 Locus 9
B-Grid Coordinates
E685 / S347.2 *192.8
Description

Late in TR or early in EC. A large fragment, probably from the shoulder. Exterior: scale pattern. Most of the fragment is covered by shiny black glaze, but at the bottom are three registers of scales with portions of six scales preserved. The pattern alternates rows of black scales with wide borders created by two sets of parallel incisions and scales with narrow borders created by a single set of parallel incisions. There are white dots within the wide borders and added red on the scales with narrow borders. Compass points. Interior glazed. Glaze: exterior thick, black, and shiny; interior somewhat streaky. Clay: fine and hard. The clay is fired to different colors on the interior and exterior, giving the impression of two layers of clay: exterior, yellowish in hue, Munsell no. 10 YR 7/4 (very pale brown); interior, pinkish in hue, Munsell no. 5 YR 6/6 (reddish yellow).

Scale patterns with white dots appear as early as LPC (see Cor 34). The style develops in earnest in EC and continues into MC, especially in the works of the Erlenmeyer and the Dodwell Painters.

This is one of the more elaborate scale-pattern pieces yet found at Sardis. In its original state, it must have been quite colorful.

Dimensions
P.H. 0.051; P.W. 0.025; Th. 0.004
Comments
Cf. Cor 34, Cor 65, both with white dots in wide borders; Cor 37, with added red but no white dots (also from BF). Similar scale-pattern pieces with narrow borders and added red in the centers, but without white dots, were found at Ephesos, Ephesos XII:1, 57, K233, pl. 27 (dated as probably TR). Supra, "Clay," 17 and n. 107.
See Also
Bibliography
Published: BASOR Suppl. 25 (1987) 88, n. 36. For the "white dot" style in general, see Amyx, CorVP 376, 539.
Author
JS