Hellenistic Pottery From Lipari (Sicily) Imitating Metal Vases

Ambrosini L.

Lipari  ceramica argentata  doratura  Apulia  Etruria  Ellenismo  Herakles 

From the Lipari Island, located about 30 km from the coast of Sicily and about 80 from those of Calabria, come some silvered vases (tin-foiled) and one silvered vase decorated with gold leaf. Shapes are the pyxis, krateriskos, thymiaterion, louterion, cup, patera, simpulum, dish, strainer, skyphos, and situla. The ritual specificity of these shapes seems to prevail over their in-trinsic value. The high number of pyxides is linked to the offerings to the female sphere. The vases, reproducing precious pottery (in silver or gold) used in the consumption of wine, come from votive pits of the necropolis. As known, the diffusion of pottery imitating metal vases or other luxury objects seems to be contemporary in Etruria and Apulia. In this study shapes, iconography, production, clay origin and technique (silver plated and gilding) are analyzed in order to understand if these vases are a local or imported production; for this last topic, ar-chaeometric analyses are in progress. The most interesting result of this study is to have identi-fied the original prototypes of the scenes depicted on two pyxides (one in silvered pottery decoratedwithgoldleafand oneinsilveredpottery): they derive from Greek bronze box mir-rors. The scene takes place in a cave near a fountain outside the enclosure of the temple of Athena Alea in Tegea and shows Auge reaching out to a retreating drunken Herakles. The same scene, perhaps taken from similar moulds, appears on the famous silver gilded phiale from the Rogozen Treasure.

Source: Manufacturers and Markets. The Contributions of Hellenistic Pottery to Economies Large and Small, Proceedings of the 4th Iarpothp Conference, pp. 161–182, Athens, 11-14/11/2019

Publisher: Phoibos Verlag, Wien, AUT