Large Red Polished Jug with Horned Handle and Pierced Lug

Early Cypriot III to Middle Cypriot I/II, c. 2100–1800 BCE · Red Polished ware · Handmade

A large jug with a full, almost spherical body and a rounded base, carrying a tall, narrow cylindrical neck that opens into a flaring rim with a flattened lip. A thick strap handle leaves the neck about halfway up and drops to the shoulder; at its top it rises into a short upturned horn. Opposite, at the base of the neck, sits a small lug pierced horizontally. The surface is a reddish-brown slip, burnished to a soft sheen and scored by fine scratches and small chips. Faint, lightly incised herringbone strokes run down the neck, and a narrow ladder band descends over the shoulder, both much worn. One side of the lower body is clouded grey-black from the fire, and a pale lime crust clings to the other.

Commentary

This is a plain, large Red Polished jug of the kind that makes up much of the bulk of Early and Middle Cypriot tomb groups. It was built by hand without a wheel, slipped and burnished; the dark fire-cloud on the lower body shows that it was fired in an open or poorly controlled setting, where part of the pot lay in a reducing atmosphere. The round base belongs after the flat-based phases of the Early Cypriot period [1], and the proportions, with a globular body under a tall narrow neck, fit Red Polished III of Early Cypriot III and the Middle Cypriot period. Plain jugs changed slowly, so the date must be broad: c. 2100–1800 BCE, following the current radiocarbon framework [7]. The framework for classifying these vessels remains Stewart's corpus of Early Cypriot pottery [5].

Two details give the jug its character. The horned handle, a short spur rising from the top of the handle, is a recurrent feature of plain Red Polished jugs; a comparable plain jug with a horned handle from Kourion is in the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm (NM Ant 1580) [4]. The pierced lug at the base of the neck, set opposite the handle, probably took a cord for suspension or for tying down a stopper. Pierced lugs of this kind multiply in the north-western workshops of Deneia and Lapithos [6], but they occur widely and do not locate the piece. A plain Red Polished III jug of similar scale from Lapithos Tomb 308 (Medelhavsmuseet L.308:003) shows the same economy of decoration [3], and Morris illustrates a large plain Red Polished jug with lugs as an example of how much of the ware relied on form and burnish alone [2].

The faint incisions on the neck and shoulder deserve comment. They are shallow and uneven compared with the deep, white-filled incision of the decorated jugs, and may be a light sketch of ornament that was never completed or simply marks of use. Without close examination, the jug is best described as essentially undecorated.

Jugs of this size were storage and serving vessels for liquids in the household, and in the tomb they formed part of the equipment for the funeral and for the dead. We know of no contents analysis for jugs of this type.