HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
 
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SALAMIS

SALAMIS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS.
BY ALEXANDER PALMA DI CESNOLÀ, F.S.A.,
page 117

500 B.c. The fact of their discovery in Cyprus shows that they were not peculiar to Italy, but came from some of the Greek potteries of Corinth or the Isles." An elegant aryballos of archaic Greek style is shewn in the accompanying illustration (fig. 275). It was found with other archaic remains at Paphos, not far from the celebrated Temple of Venus, which has been described in other works upon the antiquities of the island. The ornamentation upon neck and mouth, the style in which the swan, or eagle, is drawn and coloured, the radiating tears, or leaves, at the upper and under surface of the body, and the rosettes, or flowerets, which are placed in the field, may all be compared by the reader with similar details shewn upon the archaic oinochoe,and the archaic aryballi and other vases in Dr. Birch's History of Ancient Pottery (pp. 184-188, new edition).
Fig. 276 is a beautiful and probably unique example of the vase of the shape called Kernos. To the circular band is attached a kind of kantharos, or cup with two handles, and an amphoreus (fig. 276A), or small vase with two handles; the head of a cow or bull is on the circular border; the patterns belong to the geometric class seen on early vases. The eye of the cow is radiated. The other cup (fig. 276B), with two handles, has also a geometric pattern.Fig. 277 represents a lamp-holder or sconce. At the top is the head of a cow, having a' hole above it for a nail to attach it to the wall.A lamp was fixed in the semi-oval part beneath. The ornamentation of this object is geometric,and is of the same age as the preceding vessel. In the accompanying illustration of a group ofearly fictilia, the first is a kind of stamnos, or honey-jar, but differs from the true form of thatname, in having a single loop-handle over the mouth terminating in lions' heads, instead of two more erect handles at the sides (fig. '278). The second figure (279) is an early hydria, shewing the transition from purely exclusive geometric forms of ornamentation to a style where the geometric patterns areinterspersed with chaplets of leaf work and wavy scrolls of ivy leaves and berries. The last figure in the group (fig. 280) is probably a stamnos, from Salamis, called the "Apulian stamnos" by Dennis,1 a small and advanced variety of the stamnos. It may have served to hold honey or sweet-meats. It is a variety of the amphora. The ornamentation of this example is elegant, and of comparatively early date.

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