Circles

The Circle Motifs of Ancient Cyprus

Cypriot art, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, makes recurrent use of geometric designs and symmetry. Full circles, half circles, their placement, their width and their size play a key role in the decoration of Cypriot pottery, and in the Iron Age the circle became the single most characteristic ornament of a whole regional style.

Note that while we say circles, we often mean disks, as these circles may be of considerable width, to the point that they are completely filled in.

Before the Iron Age: Incised Circles

Circles were in the repertoire long before anyone painted them with a compass. On the North Coast in the Early and Middle Bronze Age, potters incised them into Red Polished vessels. Ellen Herscher describes a distinctive Red Polished III black-topped bottle, known from Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba and Bellapais-Vounous and dated to EC IIIB/MC I, whose standard incised decoration includes "groups of concentric circles strung on a horizontal line on the neck and sometimes the upper body." Red Polished III gourd juglets "decorated with incised concentric circles" were a North Coast type too, and they travelled: examples turn up in the south at Episkopi-Phaneromeni, and a black-topped juglet with "bands of neatly incised concentric circles" came from Kalavasos [5, p. 46].

A small Red Polished black-topped bottle in the Drakopoulos collection carries this scheme: concentric circles threaded on a single horizontal line at mid-neck, and a frieze of concentric circles on another threaded line across the shoulder, the grooves still keeping their white fill.

See the Early Bronze Age entry for the period and Lapithos for the cemetery.

These incised rings were drawn by hand and cut into the surface, so they belong to a different technique from the painted circles of the Iron Age. The rest of this page deals with the painted motif.

Circles in the Iron Age

Circle patterns run through many of the styles of the Cypro-Geometric and Cypro-Archaic periods, including Bichrome, White Painted, Black-on-Red and Bichrome Red. While circle patterns appear across these wares, each attracts different compositions and styles. Museum records show the spread: the British Museum's Black-on-Red juglet from Gastria, 8.2 cm high, is catalogued simply as decorated with concentric circles, and a jug from Lapithos Tomb 75 in the Penn Museum has vertical concentric circles on an ovoid body with a trefoil lip.

Circle motifs were used together with other motifs to build compositions on Iron Age pottery. Many of the motifs introduced in the Cypro-Geometric period stayed in use into the Cypro-Archaic, and as the Iron Age progressed new ones were added, including the free-field style, which also combines with geometric motifs such as circles.

From encircling lines to concentric circles

Einar Gjerstad's typology of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, still the framework for Iron Age Cypriot pottery, lets us follow the circle ware by ware. In White Painted I the ornament is "purely geometrical," and the circle appears mainly as encircling lines and bands. Some lenticular jugs and jugs with collar-shaped mouths already carry "ornaments composed of either concentric, encircling lines or Maltese crosses encircled by concentric lines," and the interior of the plates has "central dots, encircling lines and bands, occasionally an encircled spiral" [1]. In White Painted II the dishes and bowls show "a preference for a central circle ornament, from which opposed latticed triangles or bands radiate" [1]; the Maltese cross entry covers these base designs.

The concentric circle proper arrives with White Painted III (Cypro-Geometric III). Gjerstad lists it first among the new elements of that ware: "concentric circles; fringed concentric circles; concentric, pendent arcs" [1]. At this stage the circles stand apart: "the concentric circles are never connected" [1]. In the new free-field style of the pinched-mouth jugs, a painter might set "some isolated circles and swastikas" on the plain body [1], and on plates "the fringed concentric circles, the swastika, and the row of chevrons are used as filling ornaments" [1].

In Black-on-Red I (III) the circle is the leading ornament. Gjerstad writes that the jugs "are frequently decorated with intersecting, concentric lines, but isolated, concentric circles, which are placed below the rim of the deep bowls and on the shoulder of the jars, jugs, amphorae, and hydriae, are the most characteristic ornament" [1].

The circle style of the west

In the later stage of White Painted III, Gjerstad saw the island's uniform decoration split into "the rectilinear group and the circle group," the two differing in their ornaments but sharing the same zone, panel and free-field compositions [1]. By Bichrome IV (Cypro-Archaic I) the split was complete. "The circle style can be localized to the western and northern parts of Cyprus, and the rectilinear style to the eastern and southern parts of the island. The former may therefore be called the Western style and the latter the Eastern style" [1]. The Eastern style took up lotus flowers, birds and figures (see Lotus Flowers); the Western style stayed with "above all the circle ornament," and here "the circle decoration of the Bichrome wares" reached "its climax." In Gjerstad's phrase, "There is a veritable circle dance on the pots" [1]. White Painted IV, he noted, mainly belongs to the circle group, because the bichrome treatment was commoner in the rectilinear group [1].

The two styles were never sealed off from each other. Gjerstad stressed that "mutual influences and combinations of the two styles are not infrequent," and some Western pieces show "the intrusion of lotus and rosette ornaments" [1]. The Free-Field Style entry discusses how the east-west division has held up.

Decline

In Bichrome V (Cypro-Archaic II) "the wild dance of circles is on the decline." Sometimes, though, the circles were used "in a superfluous way: concentric circles cover the whole surface of the vase either in the free-field style or circumscribed by panels," while "lines, criss-cross lines, and strokes" were commonly used, "partly in substitution for the circles" [1].

The table summarises Gjerstad's ware descriptions [1].

How the Circles Were Painted

Many of these circles are close to perfect, from the smallest, about a centimetre across, to the large rings on the bodies of jugs and amphorae. They were not drawn free-hand. The encircling bands that run round a vessel could be painted while the pot turned on the wheel. The vertical circles, whose centre lies on the surface of the vessel, were drawn with a compass-like tool.

The tool is best documented in Greece. In Athens, the "pivoted multiple brush for drawing concentric circles," a device that paints several rings in one turn, was introduced in the transitional phase between Submycenaean and Protogeometric, and Florian Ruppenstein calls it "the most forward-looking innovation" of that phase; the first Athenian neck-handled amphora "with a set of two compass-drawn concentric circles" belongs to the same moment [3, p. 332]. In Cyprus, the earliest vase showing the influence of the Greek Protogeometric style is probably a belly-handled amphora from Salamis, on which "three concentric circles drawn with a multiple brush dominate the decoration panel" [4, p. 229].

John Boardman, writing on the multiple brush, drew a sharp line between the Greek and Cypriot uses of it. On the Cypriot Iron Age side, "In Cypro-Geometric it is used only with a compass for the small concentric circles which are so characteristic of the period. But it was not used for the groups of concentric circles with larger diameter which appear on many of the spherical flasks; nor was it used free-hand, as it had been in the Bronze Age." He added that the same was true of Syria and Palestine, and that "the use of small concentric circles as a decorative pattern might have reached Cyprus from this area" [2]. So the Cypriot circle has two possible ancestries, Aegean and Levantine, and the evidence does not settle between them.

Composition & Symmetry

To understand the composition of these circle motifs, it helps to name the components they are made of. Circles are rarely seen in the singular, unless done so with clear intent. Below we break the compositions down into recurring components seen across different vessels.

The aim is to give us a vocabulary for geometric compositions. A vessel still has to be read as a whole.

Equal Width Concentric Circles

Most circle motifs are made up of several concentric rings. Groupings of 3 to 6 circles are common, and the most common of all are equal-width concentric circles.

This motif is used in several ways: as a complete shape made of a few smaller concentric circles, or as a large sub-component of a larger composition. Equal-width concentric circles are also often used as framing circles, discussed below. Gjerstad noticed a refinement of the Bichrome IV Western style: "The outer line of the concentric circles is sometimes thicker than the others" [1]. Each circle on the Drakopoulos White Painted IV ovoid jug has a much thicker outer ring enclosing a plain field and a small central group of circles.

Horizontal Circles

The circles discussed so far are vertical: the centre of each circle lies on the surface of the vessel, or, where the circle is very large, it seems to slice the vessel into vertical pieces.

The alternative is the horizontal circle, which wraps around the vessel. Here the circle almost holds the vessel together, with its centre inside the vessel itself.

Horizontal circles follow similar rules of grouping and differing widths. Their role in a composition is different, though: they break up parts of the vessel, separating the neck from the body, for example, or accentuate the height of a vessel. They are common on taller, slender jugs such as the White Painted IV ovoid jug shown here.

Horizontal circles can also slice and partition other circles. This is common on Black-on-Red jugs and is discussed under intersecting circles below.

Horizontal circles are usually painted in black, most often as equal-width concentric bands. As with vertical groups, a slightly thicker outer band, top and bottom, often frames the composition.

Wider Disk Breaking up the Monotony

One of the main tools a painter has when working with circles is varying their thickness with intent, whether to frame, to create a focal point or to break up a composition.

Groups of equal-width circles are often broken up by the odd wider disk, frequently in a different colour of paint.

Alternating Paint Colours

In Bichrome, alternating red and black paint is often used to make a more intense composition. In the Drakopoulos collection the 42 cm Bichrome amphora shown here is painted with red and black encircling bands, and a smaller Bichrome IV amphora on a pedestal foot alternates broad purplish-red bands with groups of fine black lines, with a very wide black belt across the belly.

Wide Central Disks

One of the most elegant ways potters found to draw the eye to the centre was an almost completely filled central disk of large width, sometimes surrounding fine, small circles in the opposing colour.

Extreme Nesting

Groups of 3 to 6 nested circles of increasing diameter and equal width are common, but we also see this nesting exaggerated, with 10 or even 20 circles dominating the whole composition. This matches the Bichrome V habit Gjerstad described, where concentric circles could "cover the whole surface of the vase" [1].

Spirals

Potters sometimes used a single continuous line in place of nested circles, drawing a tightly wound spiral. This is most often seen in heavily nested compositions. The spiral has a long history in Cypriot Iron Age painting: White Painted I plates already have "occasionally an encircled spiral" on the interior [1], and Boardman describes a scheme of lines inside the lip and "a spiral band lower in the bowl" as "exactly that of most Cypro-Geometric open vases, and … quite unknown in Greece" [2].

Intersecting Circles

Circles and bands can cut across one another. Gjerstad found that Black-on-Red I (III) jugs "are frequently decorated with intersecting, concentric lines" [1], and in the Bichrome IV Western style "Encircling intersecting lines are also a common ornament" [1]. On Black-on-Red jugs this is often seen as vertical groups of concentric circles on the body crossed by horizontal bands round the vessel, so that each group is partitioned by the bands.

A Bichrome IV trefoil jug in the Drakopoulos collection shows the Western version. On each side a broad black ring encloses a zone of fine red lines around a target of red and black rings, and a horizontal belt of the same fine red lines runs across the shoulder, cutting through the upper part of both side circles so that the two systems cross like the hoops of a basket.

Circle Groupings

How circles are grouped changes over time. In White Painted III the circles are never connected [1]. In the Bichrome IV Western style "the circles are often connected in vertical or horizontal rows," and they are arranged according to the three standard layouts. In the free-field style, "isolated circles or a vertical row of connected circles are painted on the plain body of the vase"; in the zone style, "friezes of isolated or connected circles" fill the zones between the encircling lines; in the panel style, the panels are decorated "by single concentric circles or a group of circles" [1]. A Cypro-Archaic II jug in the Metropolitan Museum, with a trefoil lip and groups of vertical concentric circles, is an example of the grouped circle on a late jug. The Drakopoulos globular Bichrome amphora sets its circles as zone friezes: two registers on the shoulder, each a row of discs of five or six rings, divided by a red band framed in black.

Framing Circles

The use of circles to frame a composition, or just to create pleasing negative space, is quite common. Framing circles can be of different types, most commonly equal-width concentric circles.

Framing circles do not have to be vertical; horizontal circles are used too.

Concentric semicircles

A concentric semicircle is a set of nested arcs: half circles sharing one centre. When the set hangs from a line, usually the rim or a band, it is called pendent (or hanging); when it rises from one, ascendant. Two unrelated traditions use the motif in Cyprus, and they should be kept apart.

The first is incised, on Bronze Age Red Polished and Black Polished pottery from the North Coast cemeteries such as Lapithos. The Swedish excavators recorded Red Polished II jugs with "antithetic, concentric semicircles, separated by straight and zigzag lines," bowls whose body was "covered with a design of concentric semicircles," and a Red Polished III pyxis with "concentric semicircles around rim" [6]. They also found a Black Polished conical spindle whorl "with incised, concentric semicircles close to base" [6]. These arcs were cut by hand, without a compass. The Drakopoulos black-topped Red Polished tulip bowl carries an arcade of incised concentric semicircles beside its spiral-armed cross, and the British Museum's Red Polished III box has concentric rows of semicircles joined by zigzags.

The second is painted, and arrives with the Iron Age. Concentric, pendent arcs were among the new ornaments of White Painted III [1], and in the Bichrome IV Western style their outer line, like that of the full circles, is "also thicker than the others" [1]. A British Museum White Painted jug with black bands and semicircles is an example. The painted motif has a Greek parallel that reached the island directly: the Euboean pendent-semicircle skyphos, a drinking cup with sets of compass-drawn arcs hanging from the lip. Coldstream placed the earliest local adaptation at Amathus, "well back in the 9th century," where the Euboean cup "gave rise to a large and rather clumsy imitation in the Bichrome technique, with the pendent semicircles laboriously rendered freehand in their concentric sets" [7, p. 3]; Alexander Vacek dates the same Bichrome copy c. 800–750 BCE (see below) [4, p. 229]. Imported Euboean skyphoi were found at Kition, where a deep cup with non-intersecting semicircles and a reserved lower body is "most unlikely to be later than 850 B.C.," while a low lip and few arcs in each set mark later examples [8, p. 45]. Chemical analysis of pendent-semicircle skyphoi from Amathus tombs confirmed their Euboean origin [9].

No link has been shown between the incised Bronze Age arcs and the painted Iron Age sets; they are best treated as separate inventions. See all objects with concentric semicircles in the catalogue.

Some Cypriot geometric designs are playful. One is the semicircle containing a dot, commonly seen as a circle peeking out from behind a straight line, with the dot at the centre of the semicircle.

These are usually in black paint and appear on shapes such as kylix bowls, usually in the Bichrome style.

The semicircles break up the uniformity of a composition. Although geometric, they interrupt a more symmetric arrangement in an interesting way.

Circles Abroad

Cypriot vessels with circles travelled. Gjerstad lists Black-on-Red I (III) juglets from Knossos and Fortezza in Crete, "all decorated with encircling lines and concentric circles on the shoulder," along with local imitations of them [1]. He judged the "system of horizontal rows of concentric circles framed by encircling lines" to be characteristic of Cypriot pottery, but warned that it also "represents an independent Greek decorative system"; only where the circles sit in the same places, on similar shapes and with the same syntax, as on Cypriot vessels can they be taken as a sign of Cypriot influence [1]. Most rows of concentric circles in Sicily and Italy, he thought, point to Greek rather than Cypriot influence, while some painted pottery of western Anatolia does seem to follow Cypriot circle decoration [1].

Boardman proposed one case where the influence ran from Cyprus to Greece: rows of concentric circles on the rims of cups, "familiar on Cypriot cups and bowls, and especially on vases of Cypriot type at Al Mina, but unknown in Greek Geometric until about the middle of the 8th century, and then only in Euboea and the Cyclades" [2]. The Phoenicians and Ugarit and the Levant entries cover the eastern side of these contacts.

Complex Compositions

The components discussed above were the elements Cypriot potters drew on to build a geometric composition. The finished pot rarely relied on a single type; it combined several of the approaches outlined above.

Hand Applied Circles

As discussed above, these circles and disks were usually applied with a compass-like tool or on the potter's wheel, giving a precision that is very hard to achieve by hand. There are exceptions, with some circles clearly painted by hand, imprecise and almost crude.

One of the large jugs, the Bichrome IV jug with vertical circle systems in the Drakopoulos collection shown here, shows the difference. Its great circle systems are evenly spaced, but several of the small concentric-circle groups around them have a drifting centre and uneven spacing, which suggests they were set down more freely, perhaps by hand, after the large systems were in place.

Hand-drawn circles have parallels. Boardman observed that the multiple brush was not used for the larger groups of circles on many spherical flasks [2]. Alexander Vacek describes a Cypriot Bichrome copy of a Greek pendent-semicircle skyphos, dated c. 800–750 BCE, on which "the pendent semicircles are drawn free hand rather than with a compass and multiple brush, a tool obviously unknown to the painter" [4, p. 229].

Why some circles on a single jug were drawn with the tool and others by hand is unclear. The painter may have been hurrying, the tool may not have suited a particular size or position, or the extra circles may have been added to complete the composition. We know of no study that explains the practice.