In the Bronze Age Cypriot potters supplied the island's practical needs for cooking, serving and storage containers. Working without a fast wheel, they fashioned handmade vessels in a range of rounded forms that imitated the shapes of gourds, perhaps even molding some pots directly over gourds. This is unsurprising, since gourds themselves were used as containers.
Cypriot potters were also artisans who exercised considerable imagination in their craft. Their wares were always interesting, often exuberant, sometimes experimental and even outlandish. Since pottery was produced in small batches by individuals or families rather than by factories, idiosyncrasy rather than uniformity was the rule. Pottery was also discernibly regionalized, varying from place to place on the island. This makes the Bronze Age pottery of Cyprus among the most diverse found anywhere in the ancient world.
This gourd-type juglet is known as Red Polished Ware, and shows one of the varieties of this ware. It has a bright red slip covering it, and is decorated with incisions which were then filled with white paste. It dates to the late 3rd millennium, which is the Early Cypriot Period (contemporary with the Early Bronze Age in the Levant), and was entirely handmade - that is, none of the shaping was done using the potter's wheel. |
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 By
convention, White Painted II marks the start of the Cypriot Middle Bronze
Age. For over three centuries it predominated in the eastern and central
parts of the island, giving way only in the Late Cypriot to White Slip
Ware. Early White Painted Ware had red-orange geometric decoration carefully
painted over a light ground and burnished to a glossy finish, hence the
name "White Painted." Gradually the painted motifs and vessel
shapes became more elaborate in a manner often described as "baroque,"
though pot surfaces were much less carefully finished. White Painted Ware
was exported in small quantities to mainland sites such as Ugarit and
Megiddo. |
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 This
is an example of one of the most common, and most recognizable, types of
pottery from the Late Cypriot period, known as Base Ring Ware. You will
notice that it is set slightly at an angle. It has no lid, but does have
a high "thumb-hold" above the handle on the back. It is modeled
after metal prototypes, a common practice in the ancient world, as metals
were easier to make into varied shapes, which were subsequently copied into
the various ceramic forms. This piece has relief decoration with a wavy
ring around the cylindrical upper body, another midway along the rounded
lower body, and a few other places as well. |
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 This
shape, taken from the Near Eastern ceramic repertoire, is executed in Cypriot
White Painted Ware. Lentoid flasks, also called Pilgrim flasks, were thought
to have contained precious liquids which were carried by pilgrims. The original
containers were made of skin; subsequently they are thought to have been
made of a combination of skin and wood, before finally being recreated in
the Late Bronze Age as a ceramic form. They are seen with one, two, or three
handles; this flask has lost one of its two handles. A small air hole is
visible at the base of the neck on the right to facilitate pouring. |
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 White
Slip "milk bowls" are one of the most readily distinguishable
types of Cypriot Late Bronze Age pottery. Made exclusively on Cyprus, they
are found as exports throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, the Aegean
and north Africa. Milk bowls were also found on a Late Bronze Age shipwreck.
Their near-perfect hemispherical shape suggests that they may have been
molded over gourds, and perhaps were displayed on walls, so their intricate
painted decoration could be seen and appreciated. |
