Lydian Pottery 1 Lydian Pottery: a Quick Guide (Draft May 2017, Nick Cahill)
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Lydian Pottery 1 Lydian Pottery: A Quick Guide (Draft May 2017, Nick Cahill) Sardis produces an enormous variety of ceramics and essential analysis. of the Lydian period. For the purposes of this guide I Other important deposits include a second will consider as “Lydian” the pre-Hellenistic Iron Age destruction level of ca. 547 BC, excavated at MMS and local ceramic traditions of Sardis and related sites. The in a Lydian house under the theater (ThSt); a few tombs; following account will focus on the most common shapes some post-Lydian deposits in MMS/S. Many more and wares, which make up the bulk of ceramics in most deposits remain to be studied and incorporated, and Lydian archaeological contexts at Sardis. I will omit much pottery from HoB has yet to be studied; Lydian unusual pieces, figured pottery and imports, as these pottery is still in its infancy. Precise dating therefore warrant much more extensive treatment, much of which often rests on more diagnostic imported wares, such as is available in other studies. Within this period there is Attic and Corinthian. However, in a site where a large much continuity and standardization, and local products proportion of pottery may be earlier residuals, it is often cannot be closely dated with confidence. Much of dangerous to date ceramics by a few diagnostic sherds. what follows is therefore very speculative, and should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. Fabrics This guide will focus on the painted wares, which Five fabrics or clay mixtures are commonly used in are often more chronologically diagnostic. I do not mean indigenous Lydian pottery: to slight or omit cooking and plain wares; but they have 1. finely levigated, reddish-brown micaceous not been studied as intensively . fabric, which is used for most fine and table wares. This comes in coarser and To make matters worse, there may well be finer varieties, but broadly constitutes a significant differences in the ceramic assemblages in single category. use at the same time in different parts of Sardis. There 2. grayware, which is essentially the are distinctions between individual houses in the 547 same material, but fired in a reducing BC destruction debris, and also with between those of atmosphere to a uniform gray color, MMS and ThSt. Such distinctions may well be important sometimes slipped with glittering micaceous wash and/or burnished. earlier as well, but are little known. And finally, we may be including non-Lydian imports among our “Lydian” 3. cooking ware, which has large sandy inclusions and often contains even more pottery. mica than the fine wares Phasing of Lydian Ceramics 4. a very soft, coarse cooking fabric used for breadtrays. The first stratigraphic sequence of Lydian pottery was excavated and analyzed by Gus Swift and Andrew 5. pithoi, of a variety of fabrics. Ramage at sector HoB (House of Bronzes). Andrew’s Neutron Activation Analyses of various Lydian phases now include: wares show that the clay is often very consistent, and Bronze Age similar to the clay used in Hellenistic and Roman Early Iron Age, 11th-10th c BC (into 9th c BC?) ceramics at Sardis as well, and is undoubtedly local. Lydian IV: between the EIA and Lydian III. Two main analyses: Anatolian Iron Age ceramics project (AIA; see Kealhofer, Grave, Marsh, “Scaling ceramic Lydian III: destruction level of mid- to end 8th c BC. provenience at Lydian Sardis, Western Turkey,” Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013) 1918-1934); and analyses of Lydian II: buildings with some assemblages, abandoned/destroyed early to mid-7th c Michael Kerschner, mostly unpublished. I have included BC. a few NAA analyses among the examples shown here to Lydian I: buildings and assemblages, late 7th - indicate which are known to be of local clay, and also a mid 6th c BC destruction. few related Anatolian pieces which seem to be non-local. “Late Lydian” or Achaemenid: mid-6th c BC - Kerschner’s Groups Q, QP, and QQ are probably local. Hellenistic. AIA Macrogroup A, Ceramic Group 1.1 (abbreviated A/1.1) is local; A/1.2 - A/1.6 are probably also local too. Where not otherwise specified, all references to It seems very likely that cooking wares and pithoi were Andrew Ramage’s work is to his and Nancy Ramage’s made locally as well. forthcoming publication of sectors HoB and PC. It will be obvious how much I have adopted from their excellent Lydian Pottery 2 Standard Decorative Techniques The Lydians generally used three different materials to decorate their painted pottery: an iron-rich clay solution that could fire either red or black depending on the oxidization or reduction atmosphere of the kiln; a manganese-rich clay solution that fired to a matt black (varying from black to chocolate-brown to purplish); and a white slip consisting of primary clay. (See Hostetter, Lydian Architectural Terracottas, 47-54 for experimental replications). Sometimes they used a micaceous wash to achieve a glittering gold-colored effect (“gold-dust ware”). Streaky or Streaked: synonymous. Andrew defines as “purposeful use of an overall color wash in which the decorator seeks variations in color, density, and tone produced by different consistencies of paint and the loading of the brush. The use of streaked paint for desirable effects is most common in the later 7th and Oinochoe with streaky bands 6th centuries and seems to be a particularly Lydian on neck and body, and pendent hooks in manganese glaze on phenomenon.” Common in skyphoi, oinochoai, waveline shoulder. From “1963 Pottery hydrias and amphoras, column kraters and the like. Dump”, HoB, Lydian I but Streaked effects are already seen in Lydian III in the later probably earlier than 547 8th c BC; we used to debate whether these are intentional (P63.367) or unintentional. Black on Red: is much more widely distributed throughout Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Levant than Streaky. At Sardis, many different varieties range from careful miniaturist decoration to the hastiest slopping of a couple black bands over a red or streaky ground. Andrew Ramage identifies “one variety that has a dull Black on red dish, red clay surface with geometric designs in matte black HoB W6-9/S107- 110, *99.80-*99.55, or purplish paint, found as early as the beginning of 9.viii.63; Kerschner Lydian IV... The other, not unlike the Greek traditions, Sard 25, Group Q = is a shiny Black on Red.” Gül Gürtekin-Demir writes local). “Two distinct types may be identified in terms of the aspects of the patterns and their rendering on the pottery: geometric black-on-red and linear black-on-red. These two varieties may also be named early type (geometric black-on-red) and late type (linear black-on-red) due to Black on Red round-mouthed their chronological occurrences. The terms ‘geometric’ jug, from HoB Lydian III and ‘linear’ point to the types of decorative elements and (P68.067) not to chronological phases” (“An Eastern Mediterranean Painting Convention in Western Anatolia: Lydian Black- on-Red,” Intercultural Contacts in the Ancient Mediterranean (2011) 362). Late Black on Red stemmed dish from MMS-I destruction A fair number of the Black on Red sherds analyzed debris (P86.041). The red is by NAA have been not the usual fabric, and are possibly often streaky, and sometimes it’s hard to determine imports. whether it’s red or streaky. Black on Red is sometimes enlivened with white bands, in which case it is on its way towards Bichrome. Lydian Pottery 3 Black on Red dish, P63.600; Kerschner Black on Red closed vessel; imported (P16.036 = Sard 19, group Sard 21, group SARt, SARt; AIA 941 = Group C/3.1, which clusters with F1/F2 = N. probably non-local). Ionia. Needs clarification but not local). Brown on Buff: “describes the use of dark purplish brown paint on buff fabric that is used to make geometric schemes like those described under Black on Red. The variety of patterns, however, is smaller. There is much use of sets of parallel wavy lines arranged radially between Brown on buff stemmed dish bands on fruit stands, dishes, or jugs, and, overall, the from Building G, HoB, Lydian II (P68.159). geometric arrangements are much looser in organization than in Black on Red. The execution is often more clumsy and not so neat, so that the whole effect is less sophisticated. The later 8th century marks the heyday of this style; it goes out of fashion in the mid to late 7th c.” (Ramage). Bichrome is a loosely-defined term encompassing Earlier, “White Bichrome” many different styles and wares. Gus Swift distinguished between Red and White Bichrome: quoting Andrew Ramage, “White Bichrome, which starts earlier, has a white slip over part of the body of the pot. There is no “White bichrome” closed vessel, regular use of an overall white color except for later HoB Bldg. F (Lydian I, but pieces that are imitating East Greek Orientalizing ware perhaps residual? (P12.160) and Ephesian Ware. There are two groups that use a wide swath of white that functions much like the reserved background of the Red Bichrome, described below. One must have had fugitive coloring, because very little of it beyond traces remains in many examples; the other is quite opaque and smooth. There is a rough Bichrome closed vessel, chronological indication that the more opaque variety HoB Lydian IV, to *96.10 (P64.442) is the earlier, probably going back to the ninth century; that with less well preserved white is most popular in Lydian II, in the second half of the seventh century. Red Bichrome, instead, has the reserved body of the pot, which has been smoothed, as the background color, with added designs in black, red, and white.