Bichrome Tripod Jar with Double-Loop Handles

Cypro-Geometric III–Cypro-Archaic I, c. 850–600 BCE · Bichrome ware · Wheel-made body, hand-formed legs and handles

A squat jar with a broad, nearly flat shoulder, a short upright wall and a rounded lower body. A short collar neck with a flat top forms the mouth. The body stands on three loop legs, each a strip of clay bent into an arch. On either side of the shoulder sits a double-loop handle: two arched rolls of clay meet in the middle and drop together into a short stem, giving the outline of a pair of horns.

The ground is a pale, chalky buff. A black wavy line runs around the upper body at handle level, and the lower body carries groups of fine black lines around a broad red band just above the legs. The handles are painted black and there are traces of red on the shoulder around the collar. The surface is lightly pitted and marked by roots. Orange patches at one leg root suggest a rejoined or consolidated leg.

Commentary

The combination of matt black and red paint on a light ground makes this Bichrome ware in Gjerstad's system [1]. The shape is the jar on three loop legs. Gjerstad traced the tripod vessel to Syro-Palestinian models and noted that it had been copied from metal or wicker work, citing a bronze basin on a tripod of the same kind from Enkomi [1]. The looped legs of this jar keep the construction of such stands in clay.

The closest parallel is a tripod krater in the Louvre with animal handles, labelled Bichrome III–IV and dated Cypro-Geometric III to Cypro-Archaic I (H. 16.5 cm); it carries a far richer painted programme, with lotus, a tree, a dog and a caprid [2]. A Bichrome IV jar in the Severis collection with its ring base supported on three loop legs confirms that the type was still being made in Cypro-Archaic I [3]. The ancestry of the form runs back to Proto-White Painted tripod bowls, such as one in the British Museum on three looped feet whose handles are modelled as horned animal heads [4]. The double-loop handle itself also appears on a Black-on-Red jar from Aradhippou, where the British Museum describes it as quasi-zoomorphic [5].

That sequence explains the handles on this jar. They read as a schematic reduction of the modelled horned heads on the earlier bowls, and the most careful description is double-loop handles, perhaps stylised horns. The clay gives no muzzle and no eye, and nothing to decide between bull, goat or mouflon.

The date rests on the parallels and on the decoration. The spare scheme of bands, a red belt and a single wavy line gives little to narrow the range, and the flat shoulder with a clear collar is at home in both Bichrome III and Bichrome IV. A range of about 850–600 BCE is therefore safer than a single stage.

Tripod jars of this class, which in the museum examples cited here stand under 20 cm, are too small for storage. They were probably used for serving or offering, and intact examples come mainly from chamber tombs. No find-spot is recorded for this piece. The height has not yet been measured, and the leg root with orange patching should be examined to establish the extent of any repair.