Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

IV · Sharing it · 3D models

Objects to turn in the hand

Live

Vessels from the Drakopoulos Collection, photographed from every side and rebuilt as 3D models with their true colours, wear and repairs. Turned on the screen as if in the hand, a pot shows what a photograph leaves out: its underside and the marks written on it, the side away from the camera, the inside of a broken neck, old breaks rejoined and filled.

Each model is linked to its object’s entry in the catalogue, where the object is described, dated and compared. On this page every model can be loaded, turned, seen from above and from below, drawn as bare shape or as relief, and read with the details worth looking for.

vessels in 3D
14
vessels in 3D
objects in the collection
133
objects in the collection
painted wares
3
painted wares
years BCE
1050–600
years BCE
photographs per object
100–350
photographs per object
notes pinned to a model
4
notes pinned to a model
All 3D modelsThe Drakopoulos CollectionStudying a surface in 3D
  • 14 vessels
    c. 1050–600 BCE
The collection’s own photographs. Choose one to put it on the viewer below.

The viewer

Every model on one stage

Choose a vessel from the strip below the stage. Its photograph shows until you load the model, a large download whose size the button gives; after that, each vessel you choose loads straight away. Jump to a view, change how the surface is drawn, or take one of the details listed beside it, and the camera goes there.

Photogrammetry · the Drakopoulos CollectionDrag to turn it; the buttons send the camera
Large Bichrome IV Jug with Vertical Circle Systems

JUG-GE-001 · Drakopoulos Collection

Large Bichrome IV Jug with Vertical Circle Systems

Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE · Bichrome IV ware · Wheel-made · H. 31 cm

Look from

Surface

Look for

Notes pinned to the model

Catalogue entry →Full-page viewer →

Look from
three-quarter, profile, from above, underneath: the camera turns round the vessel to each, keeping it in the middle.
Colour
The vessel as photographed: clay, paint, deposits and stains in their own colours.
Shape only
The colours taken away and one even tone left under a raking light, so that bumps, dents and cracks read without the paint to distract.
Relief in false colour
Each tint is a direction the surface faces, so pits, scrapes and throwing ridges stand out, as in the figures of our study of a jug’s surface.

What is in it

The vessels, by ware, shape and date

All 14 models are of painted pottery of the Cypriot Iron Age in the Drakopoulos Collection, and every one is linked to its entry in the catalogue. The counts below come from those entries: the ware and period as each object’s description gives them, the shape as the catalogue classes it.

By ware

One jug is attributed to either of two wares, and is counted on its own row.

Models by ware
Bichrome6 of 14
White Painted5 of 14
Black-on-Red2 of 14
Bichrome or White Painted1 of 14

By shape

From a juglet 6 cm high to jars and plates.

Models by shape
Jugs and juglets9 of 14
Plates and bowls3 of 14
Jars and amphorae2 of 14

By period

As each object’s description dates it.

Models by period
Cypro-Archaic I9 of 14
Cypro-Geometric3 of 14
Cypro-Geometric III to Cypro-Archaic I2 of 14

The dates of the vessels

Each object by the range of years its catalogue entry gives, earliest first, c. 1050–600 BCE in all.

DSH-GE-004

1050 to 850 BCE

DSH-GE-003

950 to 750 BCE

JUG-GE-018

850 to 750 BCE

JUG-GE-019

850 to 600 BCE

JUG-GE-021

850 to 600 BCE

JUG-GE-001

750 to 600 BCE

JAR-AR-001

750 to 600 BCE

JUG-AR-001

750 to 600 BCE

BWL-GE-005

750 to 600 BCE

JAR-GE-001

750 to 600 BCE

JUG-GE-004

750 to 600 BCE

JUG-GE-017

750 to 600 BCE

JUG-GE-016

750 to 600 BCE

JUG-GE-010

750 to 600 BCE
Years BCE. Each bar is the range the catalogue gives the object; a long bar is an object that can be dated only broadly.

Every model

The object’s name links to its catalogue entry. “Turn it in 3D” loads it on the stage above; the full page has the model on its own, filling the screen.

Start here

What a model shows that a photograph does not

A catalogue photograph shows one side of a pot from one height, lit once. The model can be turned to any side and seen from directly above or below, and its surface can be drawn without its colours. Six of the vessels, and what each one shows; the button puts it on the stage at the view that shows it best.

  • White Painted Plate with Latticed Triangles and Wavy Lines on the Underside

    The underside

    White Painted Plate with Latticed Triangles and Wavy Lines on the Underside

    The main design of this White Painted plate is on its underside, out of sight when the plate sits on its base: concentric circles from which four cross-hatched triangles radiate, alternating with four freehand wavy lines. An old ink inscription runs along the underside rim with a blue-ink number beside it, and inside, the word “CYPRUS.” is printed near the rim.

    Catalogue entry

  • White Painted Plate with a Sawtooth Star on the Underside

    Use and wear

    White Painted Plate with a Sawtooth Star on the Underside

    Turned over, the plate shows a many-rayed star that has kept its paint well. Its interior is much worn, with only faint circles and a dark rim left: it was used, or at least exposed to long abrasion, on the side that faced up.

    Catalogue entry

  • Globular Jug with a Vertical Circle System, Bichrome IV or White Painted IV

    The side the photograph leaves out

    Globular Jug with a Vertical Circle System, Bichrome IV or White Painted IV

    The catalogue has a single photograph of this jug, showing one great vertical circle system. The model has the whole pot: the second system on the other side, the throwing ridges round the body, and the rim broken away beside the handle, which leaves the shape of the mouth uncertain.

    Catalogue entry

  • White Painted Jug with Painted Eyes, Chevron Arrow and Swastika

    Old repairs

    White Painted Jug with Painted Eyes, Chevron Arrow and Swastika

    Fine cracks with pale filling cross the neck of this small White Painted jug: old breaks, rejoined and filled. They interrupt the neck bands and the painted eye on that side, and some of the paint along them may be restored.

    Catalogue entry

  • White Painted IV Trefoil Jug with a Wild Goat and a Composite Plant-like Figure

    Pitting, and restored paint

    White Painted IV Trefoil Jug with a Wild Goat and a Composite Plant-like Figure

    The front of this jug, where the goat and the plant-like figure are painted, is heavily pitted; the back is much better preserved. Parts of the figure were restored in 2023–24, and some of its lines are crisper than the pitted surface around them, so details of the figure cannot carry an interpretation until restored and original paint are told apart.

    The jug's lower body drawn in false colour from its model: the pitted front at left, the smoother back at right.
    The same jug in false colour, from our study of its surface. Read it.

    Catalogue entry

  • Large Bichrome IV Jug with Vertical Circle Systems

    Marks of the kiln

    Large Bichrome IV Jug with Vertical Circle Systems

    Low on one side the clay of this large Bichrome jug is flushed pink. With the colour switched off, the model shows a bump in the same place: the jug may have pressed against something hot in the kiln and been deformed and overheated. Four notes are pinned to its surface.

    Catalogue entry

How they are made

From photographs to a model

Photogrammetry builds the shape of an object from many overlapping photographs of it, taken from all round. Nothing touches the object but light, and the result keeps the colours of the photographs.

  1. 1

    Photographs from every side

    Each object is photographed from 100 to 350 angles, depending on its size and how complicated its shape is. It stands on a turntable that turns a step between shots, so the photographs fall in even rings round it, ring above ring.

  2. 2

    Light without glare

    A single flash with a polarising filter lights the object, and a second polarising filter, crossed with the first, sits on the lens. Together they take away the shine, so that slip and paint read evenly from every side. The camera works 25 to 75 cm from the object, at 9 to 27 pixels to the millimetre.

  3. 3

    Aligned into a shape

    The photographs are adjusted for exposure, to keep detail in the highlights and the shadows, and then aligned: points found in many photographs at once fix where the camera stood for each, and from that the shape of the surface.

  4. 4

    A mesh with its colours

    The shape is kept as a mesh of small triangles, and the colours of the photographs are laid over it as one image. Some models carry a second image that records the fine relief of the surface, which the false-colour view draws.

  5. 5

    Linked to the catalogue

    Each model is tied to its object’s catalogue entry, which links to it. The models vary in quality, and the weaker ones will be made again.

A camera with a ring flash on a tripod, aimed at a small ancient jug standing on a dark green cloth.
Photographing a small jug: the camera with its flash, and the jug on a cloth.
A jug reconstructed in false colour inside a box, ringed by small pyramids that mark where each photograph was taken.
Where the camera stood: each small pyramid is one photograph, in rings round the reconstructed jug.

One model taken apart

The large Bichrome IV Jug with Vertical Circle Systems, layer by layer. Each button puts that layer on the stage.

  1. 1 · The object

    JUG-GE-001: Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE, Bichrome IV ware, H. 31 cm. Its catalogue entry describes and dates it, with 5 photographs.

  2. 2 · The shape

    The mesh alone, in one even tone. Without the paint, the swelling of the body, the handle and every bump in the surface read on their own.

  3. 3 · The colours

    The photographs’ colours laid over the mesh: the pale buff clay, the black and the faded red paint, the pink flush low on one side.

  4. 4 · The relief

    The same surface in false colour, from the model’s relief image: each tint a direction the surface faces, so that a scrape or a bump shows as a change of colour.

  5. 5 · The notes

    4 notes are pinned to points on the surface, each a numbered square that stays with the model as it turns:

    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4

Using them

Turning, finding and citing the models

The models open in the browser, on a phone as well as a computer. Nothing loads until it is asked for, and the button shows the size of the download first.

Turning and zooming

  • Drag to turn the vessel; on a phone, drag sideways, and scroll the page as usual.
  • Pinch, hold ctrl and scroll, or press + and −, to zoom. In full screen the scroll wheel zooms on its own.
  • With the stage selected, the arrow keys turn and tilt the vessel, + and − zoom, and 0 puts it back.
  • The full-page viewer for each model adds a light control and a switch for the colours, and shows its notes as small circles in space round the model.

Where else they are

Citing a model

Cite the model by the object’s name and number, and the address of its page. For example:

Ancient Cyprus, “Large Bichrome IV Jug with Vertical Circle Systems”, Drakopoulos Collection JUG-GE-001, 3D model, www.ancientcyprus.com/3dmodels/large-bichrome-oinochoe (accessed on the day you read it).

The model files are not offered for download. To use a model in teaching, research or a publication, ask us.

Own Cypriot antiquities? Get in touch, whether about recording a piece or anything else about it. What you tell us stays confidential, unless the law requires us to share it. Our guide for owners of Cypriot antiquities sets out the options.

What comes next

More of the collection, and better models

119 of the 133 objects in the Drakopoulos Collection have no model yet. The work ahead, in no fixed order:

  • More of the collection

    From the smallest juglets to the large amphorae, each linked to its catalogue entry as these are.

  • Better models

    The weaker models made again, at higher resolution and with truer colour.

  • A course in photogrammetry

    The whole process for archaeological pottery, from photographing a pot to its finished model.

  • Other collections

    Models of vessels beyond our own collection.