Bichrome IV Trefoil Jug with a Chequer Panel

Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE · Bichrome IV ware · Wheel-made

An ovoid jug on a narrow ring base, with a tall cylindrical neck, a pinched trefoil mouth and a plain strap handle from rim to shoulder. The pale buff surface is lightly worn and flushed pink on the lower body; the handle has weathered grey. A small piece is missing from the rim of the mouth, and fine cracks run from the break down the neck.

The decoration is almost entirely horizontal. Thin black rings and a faint red band circle the neck. On the body, groups of fine black lines frame a broad red band and a heavy black one, and a second group of lines sits low on the belly. The one departure is on the shoulder opposite the handle: a small chequerboard panel of black and reserved squares, fringed above by short radiating strokes.

Commentary

The red band on the body and neck places the jug in Bichrome ware, and the ovoid body with a tall cylindrical neck and pinched mouth is one of the jug shapes Gjerstad lists for Type IV, the ware's Cypro-Archaic I phase [1, p. 51]. Banded jugs of this kind are the plainest members of the series, and the scheme continued into Type V, where the neck grows wider and the handle often rises above the mouth [1, p. 53]. Here the neck is narrow and the handle meets the rim level, which favours Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE, though a date early in Cypro-Archaic II cannot be excluded.

Gjerstad divided Type IV decoration into a Western circle style and an Eastern rectilinear style, the second built from straight-line ornament and localised in the east and south of the island [1, p. 52]. This jug sits between them. Its bands are the common ground of both, while the chequer panel belongs to the rectilinear repertoire; there are no circles at all.

The Toledo Museum of Art jug 1916.96 has a similar banded body with a red band, though its shoulder carries three concentric circles in place of a chequer [2], and the British Museum's ovoid trefoil jug 1884,1210.309 shows the same zoned banding in White Painted ware [3]. The jug has no recorded find-spot, and its decoration is too common to tie it to a particular workshop. Jugs of this type were table pourers, and almost all whole examples come from tombs.