Glossary Pottery and vessels
Bucchero ware
Also called: Bucchero
A Late Cypriot ware of jugs whose bodies are covered in close vertical ribs or grooves, made in handmade and wheelmade versions.
Cypriot Bucchero is recognised by its ribbed or grooved body, often on a globular jug with a trefoil mouth and a low ring base. The name was borrowed from the unrelated dark pottery of the Etruscans. Handmade Bucchero is the older form; a wheelmade version appears at Enkomi in the 12th century BCE, where it made up a few per cent of the pottery.
Bucchero rarely left the island, though a few jugs reached Ras Shamra, Alalakh and sites in the southern Levant. It is described on the Plain White ware page with the other plain and slipped Late Cypriot wares.
Full entry: Plain White Ware
Related terms
- Trefoil mouth
A jug mouth pinched in from the sides into three lobes, like a clover leaf, making a channel for pouring.
- Ring base
A low ring of clay on the underside of a vessel on which it stands, in place of a flat, rounded or pointed base.
- White Shaved ware
A Late Cypriot handmade ware of slender, pointed-based juglets whose pale surfaces were pared smooth with a knife.