Glossary Pottery and vessels
Metopes and panels
Also called: metope, panel
Decoration divided into separate rectangular fields, each holding its own motif, as on an Archaic Bichrome amphora or skyphos.
A metope is a framed rectangular field on the body of a vessel, set off from its neighbours by vertical bands or bundles of lines. Each panel holds a motif of its own, such as a rosette, a cross, a circle or an animal, so a pot reads as a row of small pictures. The word is borrowed from Greek architecture, where it names the square slabs of a temple frieze.
The scheme is typical of Cypro-Archaic Bichrome pottery, and stags and birds are often placed in metopes. It stands beside the single floating motif of free-field art as one of the two main ways of organising the surface. See all metope designs in the catalogue.
Full entry: Motifs of Cypriot Pottery
Related terms
- Bands and lines
Plain horizontal stripes painted or incised round a pot, the simplest decoration, counted as a motif when they are the main or only ornament.
- Meander
A continuous band of right-angled, interlocking turns, known as the Greek key, used as a border on Geometric and later decoration.
Where it appears
- Rosettes
- Bichrome Ware
- Iron Age Painting Styles
- Free-Field Style: Birds, Bulls and Lotus on Cypro-Archaic Jugs
- Guilloche and Spirals
- Lattice, Chequers and Checkerboards on Cypriot Pottery
- Fish and Sea Creatures
- White Slip Ware
- Bowls
- Cups
- Cypro-Archaic Cyprus
- Decoration Techniques
and 7 more compendium pages