Plain Handmade Bronze Age Juglet

Probably Early Cypriot III to Middle Cypriot, c. 2100–1650 BCE · Handmade, probably Red Polished or Red Slip ware

A small, undecorated juglet with a pear-shaped body tapering upward to a short neck. The rim is pinched up at the front into a low, open spout, and a loop handle of round section springs from the back of the neck just below the rim and returns to the upper body. The base is rounded.

The surface is mottled from buff and pale orange to grey-black, with the darker tones concentrated on the lower body and around the handle. We see no clear trace of a burnished slip. The walls are pitted and speckled with lime and small inclusions, and a patch of encrustation remains on the lower body. The rim edge is lightly chipped.

Commentary

This juglet is the least diagnostic piece in its group. Its handmade construction, rounded base and pinched mouth are consistent with the plain jugs and juglets that accompany decorated Red Polished pottery in Early and Middle Cypriot tombs [1][2]. If the surface once carried a red slip, the piece may be a worn Red Polished juglet, perhaps of the mottled south-coast variety; if it was only lightly slipped, it may be closer to the Red Slip jugs of the later Middle Cypriot period, such as a small example from Lapithos Tomb 702 in Stockholm [3]. On either reading the date lies broadly between Early Cypriot III and the end of the Middle Cypriot period, c. 2100–1650 BCE.

A firmer identification depends on handling: whether a slip and burnish survive under the encrustation, the colour of the fabric in a break, and how the handle is fixed. Cypriot Red Polished potters often pushed the lower end of a handle through the vessel wall, a technical habit worth looking for here.