Late Bronze Age III

Chlorite amphoriskos (small jar)

Three signs engraved on the base of the vase are thought to be in Cypro-Minoan script or a very early example of Archaic Phoenician script. Cypro-Minoan script was the form of writing used on Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age. The language is thought to be derived from the Minoan Linear A script of Crete but, like Linear A, it remains undeciphered. H. 5 3/16 in. (13.1 cm); Diam. 2 in. (5.1 cm)

Date

1199 - 1150 BC

Accession No.

74.51.5057a

Collection

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Provenance

Said to have been purchased at a bazaar in Nicosia

References

Cesnola, Luigi Palma di. 1877. Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples. A Narrative of Researches and Excavations During Ten Years' Residence in That Island. p. 247, London: John Murray.Cesnola, Luigi Palma di. 1894. A Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Vol. 2. pl. CXLI.1050, Boston: James R. Osgood and Company.Myres, John L. 1914. Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus. no. 1540, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.Masson, Olivier. 1961. Les Inscriptions Chypriotes Syllabiques: Recueil Critique et Commenté. no. 2, p. 40, Paris: E. de Boccard.Masson, Olivier and Maurice Sznycer. 1972. Recherches sur les Phéniciens à Chypre. pp. 128-30, fig. 129, pls. XIX.1, XXII.2, Geneva/ Paris: Librairie Droz.Teixidor, Javier. 1976. "The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Cesnola Collection." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 11: no. 26, p. 67 .Karageorghis, Vassos, Joan Mertens, and Marice E. Rose. 2000. Ancient Art from Cyprus: The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 120, pp. 74-75, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.Hermary, Antoine and Joan R. Mertens. 2013. The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art : Stone Sculpture. no. 576, p. 402, Online Publication, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.