Rhodian jug (Heidelberg 1)

The jug in Heidelberg

A Rhodian jug from the collection of antiquities at Heidelberg University is one of the outstanding pieces in this university collection. It was acquired in 1906 for the collection of the University of Heidelberg , which was headed by Friedrich von Duhn at the time . Today it bears inventory number 1 in the collection.

description

The very bulbous jug in the shape of an oinochoe with a cloverleaf opening has been preserved almost completely and unbroken, only the left red hole at the handle attachment between the vase body and the handle is missing. The clay is not very carefully grouted and has limestone fragments. Above it is a very fine, light-colored coating. The wide handle is designed in three parts with two grooves. The handle, the foot and the lip are covered in black. Two thin black bands on the neck and two further thin black bands, which are also reinforced by a purple stripe, on the body of the vessel divide it into several lines. The vase painter has between the ribbons on the necka braided band drawn, underneath another band with tongues and lines. Above the foot, i.e. in the lower third of the vessel body, it showed alternating large lotus flowers and buds. Probably because the painter misjudged the space, one of the buds is too small. Between the ornamental bands there are two frieze bands with animal friezes.

The two friezes are separated exactly at the transition to the shoulder, at the point of the widest diameter of the vase. The upper frieze shows an eagle grasping , a deer and a sphinx , the lower frieze five grazing wild goats with high, curved horns. Details are not accentuated by incisions, as they would be common in black-figure vase painting . The bodies of the animals and hybrids are shown in outline drawings. The areas between the animals are filled as at that time usual with ornaments, including point rosettes , stylized flowers, point circles, semicircular arches over the animal back and both standing and hanging triangles. Some of the animals are particularly highlighted with a purple covering color that is used sparingly.

classification

Animal friezes have been around since the 8th century BC. Known in Greek vase painting . First of all, an idyllic world as shown in the lower frieze was shown. Eastern Greek workshops , however, added the contrast between hybrid creatures and mythical creatures as well as predatory animals, which created tension in terms of content. The decorations are also clearly Eastern Greek, especially Rhodian . The outer shape, but also the animal friezes, follow metal models.

The location of the 34 centimeter high jug is not known, the information given by Naukratis in older literature cannot be confirmed, although Rhodian painted ceramics have also been found in Naukratis. The majority of these towards the end of the 7th / beginning of the 6th century BC Jugs made in BC were found in graves on Rhodes , but a large number of such jugs were also exported throughout the Mediterranean . The prominent mark similar to a Ζ could be a trademark.

The stylistic classification of the vase is not that easy due to the fact that systems have been fundamentally revised over and over again in the last century due to new discoveries, some of which have competed with one another. When it was published in Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Germany , Konrad Schauenburg assigned the piece to the Kamiros style in 1954 . This classification according to the stylistic model has now become unusual. Today the vase is usually assigned to the middle animal frieze style , a classification according to Robert Manuel Cook's so-called “panrhodic concept” , which has actually been out of date since the turn of the millennium at the latest. In the broadest sense, the jug belongs in any case to the orientalizing style of Greek vase painting.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has an almost identical jug.

literature

• Konrad Schauenburg : Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Germany , Volume 10, Heidelberg Volume 1. CH Beck, Munich 1953, p. 9 ( digitized version ) panel 1, 1-3 ( digitized version ).
• Roland Hampe , Hildegund Gropengiesser : From the collection of the Archaeological Institute of Heidelberg University. (= Works of art in Heidelberg . Volume 2). Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1967, p. 32, 96, plate 10 ( digitized version ).

Remarks

1. ↑ On the problematic development of the Eastern Greek styles see Stefan Kaufler: Die archaischen Kannen von Milet. Dissertation University of Bochum 2004 ( digitized version ).
2. ↑ See Thomas Mannack : Greek Vase Painting. An introduction. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1743-2 , p. 92.