CULTURE / REGION OF ORIGIN: Cyprus
DATE: Cypro-Archaic I Period / Iron Age, 750-600 BCE
DIMENSIONS: Height 8.5 cm (3.25 in.); Width with handles 14 cm (5.5 in.)

DESCRIPTION:Intact. A Cypriot two-handled neck amphora in black on red ware. The vessel rests on a small ring foot. The entire outer surface is covered in a dark red slip. From its foot, the vessel expands rapidly to a bulbous body, then tapers to a broad shoulder and rises to a vertical columnar neck. Two flat section handles rise from the shoulder to meet the vessel’s broad, flat rim. Ten black bands of varying widths encircle the body, another thicker black band encircles the base of the neck, while the upper surface of the rim is entirely black. Four black stripes decorate each handle. Wheel turning marks are evident on the lower half of the body. The interior surface is matte with dark encrustation in the bottom, red wash unevenly applied on the interior neck and a black band just inside the mouth. There are several small chips and bruises on one side of the body and a small chip to the rim.

PROVENANCE: Formerly in the collection of Mr. Peter Negus, the collection formed between the 1920s and 2007 from various sources in the UK and abroad.

PUBLISHED: Bonham’s, ANTIQUITIES, 26 October, 2007, page 140, illustrated in color.

COMPARISONS: For a related example, see Paul Astrom, Corpus of Cypriote Antiquities 2, The Cypriote Collection of the Museum of Art and Archaeology University of Missouri Columbia, Gothenburg, 1979, #45, formerly in the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia, dated to the Cypro-Geometric II – III period.