Black-on-Red Globular Jug with Concentric-Circle Decoration

Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE · Black-on-Red ware · Wheel-made

A large jug with a nearly spherical body on a low ring base and a narrow cylindrical neck. The mouth has broken away; the jagged edge that remains, with the top of the strap handle attached behind it, points to a pinched trefoil mouth like those of its closest parallels. The orange-red slip is painted in matt black. On each side of the body a thick black ring surrounds a reserved field with a small concentric circle at its centre. Between the two sides, tall groups of fine concentric arcs sweep down the body, and small concentric circles are set round the shoulder above and below a pair of encircling lines. Black bands mark the neck. The surface is scuffed, with fine scratches, patches of whitish deposit and small spots of loss.

Commentary

The ware is Black-on-Red, black paint on a red slip. The body shape and the ornament match the globular jugs of Gjerstad's Black-on-Red II (IV), the ware's Cypro-Archaic I stage [1]. Gjerstad described the circle style of that stage as more developed than before: circles grouped or joined into rows, an outer circle-line drawn thicker than the rest, and large intersecting concentric lines on jugs [1]. All three features appear here in the heavy side rings, the small circles grouped on the shoulder and the sweeping arc groups.

Three museum jugs are close in shape, scale and scheme. A Black-on-Red II oinochoe from Aradhippou in the British Museum, 1880,0710.6 (H. 20 cm), has a globular body on a narrow ring base, a narrow neck and trefoil mouth, and large concentric circles enclosing smaller ones on each side [2]. A jug in the Ringling Museum, SN28.574 (H. 21.75 cm), once in the Cesnola Collection, carries a similar arrangement [3], and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna holds another Black-on-Red II (IV) jug, IV 1530, given in 1879 [4].

The British Museum and Vienna jugs are dated c. 750–600 BCE, and the Ringling example c. 800–650 BCE, so a Cypro-Archaic I date is the most likely. Gjerstad's staging of the ware is typological, and some of his later shapes turn up in the earliest firmly dated Black-on-Red contexts on the Levantine coast [5]. With Cypriot production now placed from c. 900 BCE [6], a date in the 8th century cannot be excluded. The fully developed circle style favours the later part of that range.

A jug of this size is a pouring vessel for wine or water at table. Most whole examples of the shape come from tombs, where jugs were set with bowls for drinking and serving.

Without the mouth the original height cannot be given, and the form of the lip remains an inference from the parallels. The painter's arrangement, with the side rings interrupted by the arc groups, is carefully spaced, though the small shoulder circles are laid out less evenly than the main rings.