A complete aryballos. A reserved rosette with twelve petals of slightly irregular shape springs from a circle of glaze around the opening of the mouth. Three concentric circles of glaze frame the rosette near the rim. There is a net pattern on the wide lip. On the back of the handle, a thick wavy band of glaze is framed on either side by three vertical lines. Small dots or abbreviated tongues appear on the shoulder. On the belly is a quadruple lotus pattern. Cross-hatching is used on the base of the calyxes and on the buds. There is added red on both the calyxes and the leaves. The glaze is badly worn.

Payne (NC 146--47) believed that the quadruple lotus pattern developed from Assyrian designs; the type is common. One of the few whole examples of Corinthian ware excavated at Sardis, this aryballos was found in a context datable to the Persian attack on Sardis, an attack that probably resulted in the death of King Croesus in 547. The excavator, N. Cahill, remarks that the aryballos was found with a second aryballos, Cor 124, in "a tight group of small objects including . . . lydions, jewelry, astragaloi, etc." (private correspondence, 25 August 1994).

Published: BASOR Suppl. 25 (1987) 68, n. 14 and figs. 10, 13--15 and Ramage, “Attic Cups,” 421--22, ill. 2; dated by D. A. Amyx and J. Mansfield to MC, with comparanda as follows: Payne, NC 147, fig. 54:d and 287; CVA Sweden 2, Stockholm 1 (NM 2349) 24, pl. 9, no. 3, and 93, fig. 151. See also Greenewalt, “Fall of Sardis,” 254, n. 15.

For the reserved rosette, net pattern of the lip and a somewhat similar treatment of the handle, see CVA Germany 36, Tübingen 1, S./10 1476, pl. 26, nos. 9--11 (D. 1754); see also CVA Sweden 2, Stockholm 1 (NM ant. 2349), 25--26, pl. 9, no. 3, and drawing, fig. 151, p. 93; (M.M. 1956:20) text p. 26, pl. 9, nos. 7--9 and drawing, fig. 153, p. 93; (NM ant. 393) 24, pl. 8, nos. 4, 5 and drawing, fig. 150, p. 93. Lydians and Their World, cat. 100.