White Painted Sack-Shaped Jug with Banded Body

Cypro-Archaic I–II, c. 750–480 BCE · White Painted ware · Wheel-made · H. 15 cm

A small jug with a sagging, sack-shaped body that is widest low down and rests on a rounded base, flattened just enough to stand. A short, narrow neck opens into a flaring mouth. The handle is lost: a broken projection at the rim and a stub on the upper shoulder mark its two ends.

The ornament is purely banded, in a dark purplish-brown paint. A band rings the base of the neck. On the body, a broad band at the widest point is followed by a group of about eight fine lines, a second broad band and a last fine line, all drawn on the wheel. The upper shoulder and lower body are left plain. The pale buff surface is pitted, with grey soiling and visible throwing lines on the lower body, and small losses along the rim.

Commentary

The shape is the one Gjerstad called the sack-shaped jug with pinched rim, current in White Painted Types IV and V; he describes the Type V version as "slacker than that of Type IV" [1]. The low centre of gravity and slack, rounded base of this jug suit the later end of the series, though a profile alone is a weak basis for assigning a Type. The mouth is damaged where the handle joined it, so it is no longer clear how strongly it was pinched.

An older description of this piece as a juglet with a damaged spout is mistaken. The projection at the rim is the upper attachment of a strap handle, and the matching stub on the shoulder shows where it ended. Complete, the vessel was a small one-handled pouring jug of the ordinary Cypro-Archaic household and tomb repertoire.

The banded scheme, with no circles or figures, is the plainest form of White Painted decoration in these centuries. A White Painted V ovoid jug with pinched rim and belly bands in the Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm (MM Acc 0884), dated Cypro-Archaic II, is a close parallel in both shape and ornament [2]. A sack-shaped jug in the Teece Museum, Christchurch (76.68), which has also lost its handle, carries a similar banded scheme [3].

The broad bands have a purplish cast. If a true red could be identified under magnification, the piece would move into Bichrome; as it stands, the paint reads as a single dark colour fired unevenly. The date range covers both Types, Cypro-Archaic I–II, c. 750–480 BCE. The findspot is not recorded.