Black-on-Red Trefoil-Mouthed Juglet with Ringed Circles

Cypro-Geometric III–Cypro-Archaic I, c. 850–600 BCE · Black-on-Red ware · Wheel-made

A small jug of oinochoe shape, with an ovoid body on a low ring base, a tall neck and a pinched trefoil mouth. A strap handle rises from the back of the mouth and curves down to the shoulder. The bright orange-red slip is well preserved and keeps a soft lustre. The painter blacked the lip and the handle, drew two bands high on the neck and a third at its base, and on each side of the body set one heavy black ring around a reserved red field, with a small bull's-eye of concentric rings at its centre. The edge of the ring on the far side shows at the profile. Wear is limited to small chips, scattered pale deposit and some rubbing of the black paint.

Commentary

The juglet is a standard product of Cypriot Black-on-Red ware: wheel-made, red-slipped and painted in matt black, with its ornament built from compass-drawn circles and plain bands [1]. The trefoil or pinched mouth belongs to the jug shapes that Gjerstad listed under Black-on-Red II (IV), "similar to" the jugs of the other wares of that period [1]. Schreiber found the trefoil-lipped juglet already among the earliest firmly dated Black-on-Red finds on the Levantine mainland, so the shape cannot by itself be tied to Gjerstad's later stage [2].

The decorative scheme, a single large ring on each side enclosing a small set of circles, recurs across a close group of museum pieces. A juglet from Gastria in the British Museum, 1982,0729.217 (H. 8.2 cm), is close in shape and ornament and is catalogued Cypro-Geometric III to Cypro-Archaic I [3]. A smaller example in the Cesnola Collection at the Metropolitan Museum, 74.51.377 (H. 6.2 cm), is dated Cypro-Archaic I [4], and a larger jug of the same ware from Marion Tomb 98, excavated by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, is classed Black-on-Red II (IV) and dated Cypro-Archaic I [5].

On that evidence the juglet belongs to the ware's main period, most likely Cypro-Archaic I (c. 750–600 BCE). Because the shape is also attested at the start of production, which radiocarbon work at Megiddo now places c. 900 BCE [6], a range from late Cypro-Geometric III is retained here.

Small juglets of this ware are usually read as containers for perfumed oil, a reading supported by their size and by their wide export along the Levantine coast. No residue analysis of a Cypriot Black-on-Red juglet has yet been published, so this remains an inference. The trefoil mouth, pinched to form a spout, suits controlled pouring of small quantities.

The heavy outer ring drawn around finer inner circles is the thicker outer circle-line that Gjerstad noted as a feature of the developed circle style [1]. On this juglet the bold ring and the small centre circles are well centred and evenly drawn.