White Painted VI Owl-Headed Rattle

Late Cypriot I–II, c. 1650–1300 BCE · White Painted VI ware · Handmade

A hollow, closed clay rattle modelled as a bird. The ovoid body swells at mid-height and narrows to a blunt point at the base. A short neck carries a flat-topped head, squared off at the front, with a slight point at each upper corner for the ears. Two round holes pierced side by side through the face make the eyes. A lump rising behind the crown is probably the root of the handle, seen end-on. The surface is a chalky cream slip, painted in matt grey-black: a band at the base of the neck and broad stripes that hang from it down the body towards the point. The paint is worn and patchy, and the slip is rubbed through in places, with a small chip on the left flank.

Commentary

The object belongs to a small and distinctive Late Cypriot class that Daisy-Kate Knox catalogues as type OZV, the "owl rattle" [1]. The type is defined by a hollow ovoid body with a pointed base, a short neck, a flat head with pointed ears and two pierced eyes, a strap handle from the back of the head, and loose pebbles sealed inside [1]. The body copies the small White Shaved dipper juglet, which was made around Enkomi and exported in quantity to the southern Levant [1, 5]. Most scholars classify the fabric as White Painted VI, although some museums label the same objects White Shaved [1]. Paint is normally limited to a band at the neck and pendant stripes on the body, which is exactly the scheme here [1]. The standard type drawing is in the Swedish Cyprus Expedition volume on Late Cypriot pottery [3].

Dating is less settled than the type. The British Museum dates its rattle from Enkomi Tomb 83A to Late Cypriot I [2], and the Metropolitan Museum and a published group of three rattles in Athens are catalogued the same way. Knox dates the type as a whole to "LC IIA–C?", with her own question mark [1]. A range from Late Cypriot I into Late Cypriot II covers both positions. Knox records 45 examples, of which 27 have no find-spot. Seventeen of the 18 with a known context come from tombs, mostly in eastern Cyprus, above all at Enkomi, and a few from tombs in the Levant [1].

The "owl" is a modern reading of the flat face, pierced eyes and ear points. The earliest descriptions call the head only "apparently" bird-like [1]. The old identification as a child's toy is now widely doubted. The fragile clay could not have stood up to hard play, and the tomb contexts suggest the sound had a funerary or protective purpose [1, 2]. Katerina Kolotourou counts clay rattles as the earliest musical instruments known from the island [4].

The best visual parallel is a British Museum rattle (1982,0726.12; H. 12.2 cm), which has the same grey-black stripes on a cream ground. The reference example from a documented tomb is British Museum 1897,0401.1178 (Walters C323), from Enkomi-Ayios Iakovos Tomb 83A [2]. A smaller rattle in the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University (2004.054.036; 9.5 cm) is dated Late Cypriot IB.

Two points need checking on the object. First, whether it still rattles, which would confirm that the pebbles are sealed in a closed body. Second, the form of the handle, which the photograph shows only end-on. Its height has not been recorded.