Globular Jug with a Vertical Circle System, Bichrome IV or White Painted IV

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

A broad globular jug on a low base, with a short, slightly tapering neck and a strap handle that springs from just below the rim and drops to the shoulder. Part of the rim is broken away beside the handle, so the original form of the mouth is uncertain. Fine painted rings circle the top of the neck, and strong throwing ridges run round the shoulder and body.

The visible side is filled by one large vertical circle system. Its outer frame is a set of broad brownish bands alternating with thin black lines; at the centre, set well apart from the frame, is a small target of fine rings around a brown-filled disc with a dark dot. The field between frame and centre is left plain. The buff surface is worn and blotched with brown staining, heaviest on the upper body.

Commentary

The globular body and short neck match the jugs of Type IV in Gjerstad's system, the Cypro-Archaic I phase of the painted wares [1], and the single vertical circle system on the side belongs to what he called the Western or circle style [1]. The jug is simpler than the collection's circle-style jugs JUG-GE-001 and JUG-GE-002: there are no small circle groups in the interspaces and no heavy ring around the centre, only a wide frame and a small target with a large reserved field between them. The effect is close to the barrel jugs of the same period, whose ends carry exactly this kind of target, transferred to a round-bodied pouring jug.

The ware name is not yet settled. The broad bands of the frame read purplish or reddish brown against the black of the thin lines, which suggests a red paint that has faded or discoloured in burial, and so Bichrome IV. If inspection in raking light finds no red pigment, the jug is White Painted IV, in which the same circle scheme also occurs. Either way the date is the same, Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE.

The excavated Bichrome IV globular jug no. 6 from Stylli, with "black and red vertical circles on body", gives the type in a tomb context [2]. A globular jug in the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1916.2005, has the same arrangement of a large vertical circle system on each side [3], and the British Museum oinochoe 1894,1101.286 from Amathus shows the vertical circles in White Painted ware [4]. The Walters Art Museum jug 48.2347 is a Bichrome example of the circle style with a pinched spout [5]. The jug has no recorded find-spot.