AN EASTERN GREEK LYDION

Circa 500 BC. An elegant pottery vessel in the form of a jar, the everted rim tapers to a narrow neck, the body painted in black, broadens to a piriform body decorated with a painted black band. For a similar example see the Louvre Museum, found in the tomb J24 in the necropolis of Elaeus, in Thracian Chersonese during the excavations of the archaeological section of the French Easern Army, 1922. Accession number (CA 4061). These forms of jars have been found at Sardis as well as around the Mediterranean. Because they seem to have been a speciality of Lydia, modern scholars call this type of vase a lydion. These jars probably contained baccaris, a perfume for which Sardis was noted in antiquity.Size: L:65mm / W:60mm ; 90gProvenance: Property of UK Ancient Art Gallery; formerly US Ancient Art Gallery, Washington, DC, 2014, previously private collection of a Princeton University professor, NJ, acquired prior to 1960.