Red Polished Juglet with High-Swung Handle

Early Cypriot III–Middle Cypriot I, c. 2000–1850 BCE · Red Polished ware (probably) · Handmade

A small, squat juglet with a globular body on a rounded base. The neck is short and wide, opening into a slightly flared rim that is pinched forward into a shallow pouring lip. A thick loop handle springs from the back of the rim, swings up well above the mouth in a high arch, and comes down to meet the shoulder.

The surface is an orange-red slip, now matt, mottled with buff where it has worn through and with a grey firing cloud low on the body. Patches of pale deposit cling to the belly and neck. There is no incised decoration. The walls and the handle show the slight irregularities of a vessel shaped by hand.

Commentary

The plain red surface, round base and high-swung handle identify this as a Red Polished juglet of the kind that closes the Early Cypriot series and runs into the Middle Cypriot. Its closest published parallel is a juglet in the British Museum, classed by the museum as Red Polished III, Stewart Type I B4 g, and dated Early Cypriot III to Middle Cypriot I (c. 2000–1850 BCE) [1][2]. That juglet is 8.5 cm high, undecorated, with an ovoid body, round base and a handle "rising slightly from rim to shoulder", and carries surface accretions like this one. The handle of this juglet rises more steeply, which gives it a more upright, looped profile.

The date of c. 2000–1850 BCE follows that parallel. Plain Red Polished juglets changed little over a long period, and the numbered subdivisions of Red Polished ware are unreliable as dates [3][4], so a wider Early Cypriot III to Middle Cypriot II range, c. 2100–1750 BCE, remains possible.

The pinched lip is less usual. Pinched or trefoil mouths are mainly an Iron Age habit in Cyprus, and Bronze Age jugs more often have round or beaked mouths [3]. A pinched spout does appear on Middle Cypriot Red Slip jugs, for example one in Moscow with a slightly raised handle from rim to shoulder [5], so the feature does not rule out a Cypriot Bronze Age date.

Like most complete Cypriot juglets of the period, this one probably comes from a tomb. Juglets of this size held small quantities of liquid; its contents are not known.

The shape also has close relatives outside Cyprus. A jug from Tell Ay (Ai) in the southern Levant in the Louvre, with a raised handle, globular body and rounded base, has nearly the same silhouette [6]. Given the Cypriot parallels, Cypriot manufacture is the most likely reading, but examination of the fabric and of any burnish under the worn slip would be needed to confirm it.