Excavations at Al Mina, Sueidia: III. The Red-figured Vases

Extract

I am indebted to Sir Leonard Woolley for his invitation to publish the red-figured vases found in his excavations at Al Mina; to Mr. Martin Robertson, who has helped me in many ways, and was the first to notice many of the joins; to Mr. C. O. Waterhouse for the drawings and photographs. I give only a selection of the finds, but have omitted, I think, little of importance. The red-figure is all Attic.

The black-figure from Al Mina is scanty, poor, and no older than the earliest red-figure sherds found there, which are from eye-cups:—

1. Three fragments of an eye-cup. The largest measures 0·041 m. across. A, part of the left-hand eye; shank and heel of the figure, cutting across the tear-gland. B, part of the left-hand eye and of the ground-line. The fragment not figured gives another bit of eye. Not one of the very earliest eye-cups: about 525.

2. There is no saying whether a third fragment of an eye-cup belongs to the last or not: the cup was bilingual, and part of the b.f. interior remains, a centaur with a stone in his right hand: greatest breadth 0·060 m.

Red-figure does not become plentiful at Al Mina until well on in the third quarter of the fifth century. In the fourth century the import increases. There is little archaic red-figure, and most of what there is belongs to the end of the period.