Miniature Bichrome Plate with Concentric Circles

Probably Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE (range c. 850–600 BCE) · Bichrome ware · Wheel-made

A miniature shallow plate with a rounded, slightly in-turned rim and a small raised handle at the rim. The interior is painted in black and red on a pale cream ground. A dark band covers the lip; below a narrow reserved zone, a broad black band gives way to a wide band of red, within which the painter drew a set of fine black concentric circles, the red showing between them. The reserved centre holds more circles around a small painted ring. Wheel striations are visible through the red.

The handle is darkened with paint. The rim is chipped on one side, and whitish lime encrustation clings to the centre and the upper wall.

Commentary

Black and red paint on a pale ground places the plate in Bichrome ware, the two-colour counterpart of White Painted in the Cypriot Iron Age. As in most Bichrome, the red is used as a fill inside a black framework [1]; here the painter laid the red band first and then drew the black circles across it.

Its small scale and form point to a group of little plates that the Swedish Cyprus Expedition found in Cypro-Archaic tombs at Stylli in the Famagusta district. These are Bichrome IV plates with in-turned rims, "encircling lines outside and inside" and "red handles", with diameters as small as 10.5–10.6 cm (nos. 5 and 28), and with two wavy handles pierced by string-holes at the rim [2]. One from Stylli Tomb 17 in Stockholm measures only 9.5 cm [3]. In Gjerstad's system Bichrome IV corresponds to Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE [4], which is the most likely date for this piece.

A single handle rises from the rim. If the plate once had a second, now lost, the Stylli type fits well. If it was made with one handle only, a comparison opens with earlier single-handled plates such as a White Painted I example from Lapithos Tomb 408 with one horizontal handle and a shaft opposite [5], which would push the date back. For that reason the range is given as c. 850–600 BCE, with Cypro-Archaic I the more likely date.

Plates this small held little and are found in tomb groups alongside full-sized vessels. They may have held a token offering of food or oil for the dead.