Unnumbered pageScan 46 of 77
Margin left: Lindos I Les Petits Objets Berlin 1931
* cf. e.g. Mi 106Tomb 9 (LCIA)\Mi 104 D(A) [illegible: befo?The shape and technique of the pot represented by this fragment sets it off from the others discussed. Equally different is the design. I do not, in this case, even propose that the design was impressed from a cylinder seal. Rather, a matrix of wood or bone, perhaps even an incised spindle whorl will have been used to make the impression. The design as I have restored it is not unlike that on spindle whorls found in considerable numbers \LCIB-II\Mi 136 E DIh\LCIIIA] at the Settlement of Bamboula, viz., incised circles.^* If the storage jar is actually much later than the Bronze Age, as seems likely from its rim, it is never theless to the spindle whorls that we shall look for a link with its decoration.
cf. C. Blinkenberg\Lindos I 255ff\T. Dunbabin 'Ex-voto\from the Dr. Giamalakes'\Collection' [illegible* Dunbabin loc. cit.+ cf. Hesp. XIV pl. 32\BCH LXXIV pl. 20:1\Lindos pl. 40: 912 Cx BCH LXXIV 163\fig. 15: 10\++ cf. Lindos I pl. [illegible: 14?In dealing with relief pithoi of the Archaic (Greek) period, one makes a sharp distinction between those which have hand-modelled or hand-incised representations and 1952\156.] designs and those which have stamped and rolled designs.^* It is, of course, with the latter that we are concerned, and these one may attempt to come into use around the end of the third quarter of the sixth century B.C. Concentric circles play a considerable role in the decoration of both Cretan and Rhodian stamped pithoi;^+ and it would not be surprising if this particular element of design is a revival or continuation of the Bronze Age type repre-proto sented by the Bamboula spindle whorls. To be sure there is no exact parallel available for our : 394\oo cf Hesp. XIV pl. 30:2] design. The "T" or "I" motif, as the case may be, is at least known in archaic relief pithoi of the hand-incised class.x In any case, the combination of circles and an iota or tau-++^ shaped element is not difficult to imagine in the period under consideration. And although archaic pithoi have decoration on their sides, par excellence, the rims to are sometimes decorated.^oo
The above discussed context of Sh 615 allows only a rough dating, especially as it is difficult to guarantee a distinction between Cypro-Archaic I and II classifications when one has only sherds and not whole pot shapes to go by, as in the present case. More evidence is needed to be sure that the practice of rolling seals or matrices on pithoi existed in Cyprus 50-75 years prior to the first reported instances elsewhere. Tentatively, however, this would seem to be the case. And such a conclusion is strengthened by powerful circumstantial evidence:
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain