FIG. 75. JUG WITH CONCENTRIC CIRCLES: GRAECO-PHOENICIAN PERIOD (BRITISH MUSEUM).
Graeco-Phoenician pottery is, as has been said, exclusively wheel-made, and almost always supplied with a “base-ring.” Reliefs and incised ornaments are never found, but instances of moulded wares, combining the vase with the statuette, are not wanting, especially among the later varieties. The designs are usually painted in a non-lustrous black pigment, varied with the use of opaque purple and white, corresponding to the pigments employed by Hellenic potters. The ground is either white, without any polish or slip—as in the painted white ware of the Bronze Age and sub-Mycenaean fabrics—or else covered with a more or less lustrous red slip, varying from a bright orange or deep red to a dark brown (the latter usually with unpolished surface). Purple is employed only on the white wares, white only on the red. The typical decoration of the white wares consists of lotos-patterns, tree-ornaments, and water-fowl. Generally speaking, these are earlier than the red. On the lustrous red wares the decoration is usually confined to simple patterns of concentric circles, vertical and horizontal, maeander crosses, lozenges and triangles. Fig. [75], from Curium, is a typical specimen of the more elaborate types, and another is shown in Plate [XIII].
The forms are at first very varied, but gradually crystallise into some half-dozen main types: dishes, bowls on stems, lekythi with one or two handles, jugs with globular bodies, and large amphorae with vertical side-handles. Of these the jug is by far the commonest. Among the peculiar forms in the earlier tombs (eighth to sixth centuries) may be mentioned aski in the form of birds or oxen (the latter a Mycenaean survival), and a kind of flask with barrel-shaped body, on which the decoration of concentric circles, etc., does not follow the usual horizontal system of classical pottery, but is disposed vertically, in contradiction to all artistic feeling (see Plate [XIII].). The circles are often very fine and close, and were produced by holding a brush full of paint close to the surface of the vase as it was turned on the wheel. The drawing of the circles in different planes, without regard to the lines of the vase, was easily effected by placing it in different positions. In the period of Hellenic importations the principal form is the jug with ovoid body and modelled spout, and flat dishes are also common.
Unpainted pottery is almost as common as painted in the Graeco-Phoenician period, and calls for a few words of separate treatment. For the most part it comes under the heading of Domestic Ware, or earthenware vessels similar to those in ordinary use at the present day. They are made of plain, unrefined, usually reddish, clay, without any slip or polish, and include various forms of jugs, bowls, and plates, as well as the large wine-amphorae with pointed bases universally found at all periods. Many lamps and small “cup-and-saucer” double bowls occur in this category. In the earlier tombs of the Transitional period, pottery of a black-slip ware, with reeded body, is frequently found, chiefly in the form of jugs and kraters. Plain black wares, like the Italian bucchero, are also rarely found; as are vessels covered with a fine red slip and polished.
In most of the painted pottery of the Graeco-Phoenician period, especially in its earlier phases, the technical methods are those which we have already described in speaking not only of the “sub-Mycenaean” or Transitional fabrics, but also of the painted white ware of the Bronze-Age tombs. That is to say, that the decoration is in dull colour on a lustreless and (usually) unpolished white or drab ground. The colour, however, is usually not red, as in the earlier stages, but black, red being used chiefly as an accessory or for picked-out details. The latter varies from a pale brick-red to deep purple. The system of decoration is often extremely elaborate, although the range of subjects is limited. Apart from geometrical or conventional patterns, such as the stylised palmette, lotos-flower, stars, or trees, we only find water-fowl, fish, a few quadrupeds such as bulls or deer,[[856]] and finally human figures. But the last are exceedingly rare, and confined to the white wares, the best example being perhaps the very Oriental design of two warriors driving in a chariot,[[857]] or the worshippers rendering homage to seated deities on the fine vase from Ormidhia (Fig. [76]).[[858]]
PLATE XIII
