Figs. 60 & 61. BUSIRIS; HERAKLES: NAUKRATITE SHERDS FROM NAUKRATIS AND ATHENS.
Beside the Rhodian ware Miletus seems also to have been the export-centre of another allied fabric, that of the vases called ‘Fikellura,’ from the name of the site in Rhodes, where they were first found. Their home is now generally sought in Samos because of the common ware found in that island. The greater number of the vases preserved, the prevalent form being the necked amphorae with metope-maeander (Fig. [ 56]), are contemporaneous with the later phase of the Rhodian. This is proved by the advanced ornamentation with the thinner simplified lotus wreath, the rows of circumscribed palmettes, leaves (Fig. [63]), pomegranates (Fig. [62]), and crescents (Fig. [63]); also by the almost complete disappearance of the ‘horror vacui’ so that the painter may reduce filling ornament to its lowest dimensions, paint big surfaces with loose net and scale patterns, and decorate the body of the vase with big continuous handle tendrils and an animal placed between them or only with a human figure boldly inserted in the void (Fig. [62]). In the animals and fabulous beings, which add to the Rhodian types the heron and the water-hen or the fantastic man with the head of a hare, the partial silhouette is now rare; narrow lines left without colour, as at Naukratis, take the place of incised lines, and in the same technique are the purely human forms, which with their receding foreheads, projecting noses and almond-shaped eyes, with their coarse postures, are, like the Naukratis vases, true offspring of the Ionic spirit.
The Altenburg amphora (Fig. [63]) must be a late example. The loin-cloths are painted red and framed with incised lines, which this style so long resisted. A few dot rosettes, reduced to their lowest dimensions, are all that is left of the old filling ornamentation, a long-stemmed bud, such as the early 6th century favours, projects into the field. Just as the runner of the London vase in his vigorous but stiff posture gives quite a new meaning to an old ornamental scheme, so the movements of the Altenburg revellers, which entirely fill the field, convince us of their intoxication. The ornamental style has now in the East, as well as in the West, become narrative and descriptive.
With these bibulous Ionians, who to the sound of flutes dance round their big mixing-bowl with cups and jugs, we pass finally from the wide ramifications of 7th century vase history to the developed archaic style.
PLATE XXXI.