Red Polished Knob-lug Bowl with Incised Concentric Circles and Hatched Chevrons

Early Cypriot II–Middle Cypriot I, c. 2200–1900 BCE · Red Polished ware, black-topped rim · Hand-made, incised, lime-filled

A deep, almost globular bowl with a rounded base, photographed upside down so that the base forms the crown and a small knob lug on the rim points downward. The orange-red slip is burnished to a soft sheen, and a narrow band of black firing runs along the rim. The whole outside is covered with white-filled incision. A target of five or six concentric circles is centred on the base. Around it the body is divided into panels of hatched chevrons and bands of parallel strokes, and smaller groups of concentric circles sit near the rim. White fill survives in nearly every groove and has smeared over parts of the surface. An old ink number, 10, is written on the base. A long crack runs from base to rim, with a second branch at the lower left.

Commentary

The hemispherical body, single rim lug and incised decoration make this a decorated knob-lug bowl, Stewart's Class XIII F in its incised variant (F3) [1]. The plain version of the same bowl was among the commonest vessels in north-coast Early Cypriot tombs: Kehrberg counted 43 examples in one Vounous tomb and 59 in one tomb at Lapithos-Palealona. Decorated examples are far fewer, from one to nine in a tomb [2].

The closest parallel is a small bowl in Cambridge from Pano Dhikomo-Mavro Nero, 1951.1084 A, with a pierced lug, a black interior, incised lines round the rim and eight concentric circles joined by lines and dashes [3]. Manchester Museum 35197, from Vounous Tomb 139, has the same red body shading to a black top and interior, white-filled incision and a pierced lug, and is dated Early Cypriot III–Middle Cypriot I [4]. Two bowls from Nicosia-Ayia Paraskevi in the British Museum, 1888,0927.16 and .17, combine a single pierced lug with hatched bands, zigzags and arcs and are dated about 2100–1900 BCE [5]. Concentric circles were among the favourite Red Polished motifs at Vounous [6].

Knob-lug bowls were made over a long period, from Early Cypriot II into Middle Cypriot I [7]. The deep near-globular profile and the all-over zoned decoration point to the later part of that range, and the closest parallels cluster in Early Cypriot III–Middle Cypriot I. Without a find context, c. 2200–1900 BCE is the safer bracket, with the later end more likely. Red Polished workshops on the north coast used white-filled incision far more than those in the centre and south, but the Dhikomo parallel is a reminder that decorated bowls were not confined to Vounous. The find-place of this bowl is unrecorded.

The circle target on the base is set where it would be seen when the bowl was turned over, hung by its lug or held up to drink. That suggests the underside was meant to be looked at, although how these bowls were displayed or stored is an inference from their decoration. Small bowls of this kind are usually taken as cups for drinking or for small offerings; their contents are unknown. The ink number on the base is an old collection mark whose origin has not been established.