f - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

the lower part of the tendrils has been replaced by a
lotus flower with the buttons placed above the calyx.
But in 25, the lower part of the tendrils has been
retained, suggesting that there may have been two
palmettes of the nine-petaled type opposing another
smaller palmette with fewer petals (perhaps only
three, judging from the space left between the ten-
drils).58 Such a decorative scheme appeared at least
as early as the first quarter of the 6th century B.C.,"
and it did not undergo any really substantial
changes, even if sometimes the lower palmette was
eliminated, as in the case of the two antefixes cur-
rently on display in the Akropolis Museum,60 dated
to the beginning of the 5th century. The palmette on
25, the plasticity of which is notable thanks to a par-
ticularly fresh matrix and to its excellent state of
preservation, must be dated later, to the end of the
6th or to the beginning of the 5th century B.C.: the
slenderized form with a greater ratio between height
and width, the more developed central petal with
side petals graduating in size, and above all the
arched outlines of the latter all figure as later stylistic
evolutions.61
End of the 6th century B.C.
26. Bowl fragment Fig. 1, P1. 66
C-62-277. H. 0.055, W. 0.151, rest. D. 0.595, Th.
0.026.
Very impure, very pale brown clay (1OYR 8/4)
with numerous red inclusions; fine, pink slip
(7.5YR 8/4). A small part of the original circum-
ference is preserved. Slightly eroded surface;
chipped edges.
CORINTHIAN BASINS ON HIGH STANDS 371
Overhanging, thickened rim with outward slanting
top and underside with appendage. The vertical outer
side of the rim is modeled with two groups of three
ridges of varying height, separated by a central flat
band. Wide bands of brown and dark red accurately
and alternately cover the first and third ridges in
each group, leaving the central ridge unpainted; the
outermost bands reach the underside and the outer
edge of the rim top. In the central space there are
small, alternating red and brown checks which border
a simple maeander.
Findspot: Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Random
surface find, not from a datable context (Lot
1953) 62
The dentil or simple maeander motif filled with
small colored checks belongs to a group of decorations
which could be applied on every type of surface;
it is therefore difficult to trace its development
in aiming at an exact date for 26. The typology and
scheme are almost unchanged. The motif rarely occurs
on architectural terracottas, which usually display
a livelier and more intricate decoration.63 It is
rare on Attic pottery.64 It appears instead in the
enormous repertoire of Clazomenian sarcophagi,
but not before 500 B.c.65 It does not seem to be too
far-fetched to liken our maeander to a type of lightcolored
band decoration of little checks or simple
dark-colored points which appears on many vases
from Early Corinthian to Late Corinthian I and
I1,66 corresponding at least to a common ornamental
concept.
It seems possible to deduce, at least in a general
way, that the greatest diffusion of this motif occurred
58 For the motif of the two opposing palmettes held by a ring, cf. 10.
59 Van Buren, no. 18, p. 148, fig. 76; Rhomaios (footnote 16 above), figs. 7, 8.
60 M. S. Brouskari, Musee de l'Acropole. Catalogue descriptif, Athens 1974, p. 142, nos. 10253, 10254,
(Room VI); see also the later fragmentary examples from Nemea, Stella G. Miller, "Excavations at Nemea,"
Hesperia 52, 1983 (pp. 70-95), p. 91, pl. 28:c.
61 For example, cf. the bronze palmettes from Olympia, Kunze (footnote 19 above), pp. 208, 210, pl. 75,
nos. 80, 81. They are in a different iconographical scheme, but they display the same characteristics.
62 For the 1962 campaign conducted in the sanctuary, see Stroud, 1965, pp. 1-24.
63 A similar motif is displayed on a fictile idrorrhoon from Megara Hyblaia, E. D. Van Buren, Archaic
Fictile Revetments in Sicily and Magna Grecia, London 1923, fig. 48.
64 L. D. Caskey and J. D. Beazley, Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston III, Boston
1963, p. 44; D. C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi, Oxford 1975, fig. 5; cf. also L. Berge in W. G. Moon,
Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections, Chicago 1979, pp. 136-137, no. 77.
65 Cf. the sarcophagi of the Albertinum Group (ca. 500-470 B.C.); Cook, pp. 80-81, no. 6.
66 Cf. D. A. Amyx in Moon (footnote 64 above), pp. 24, 25, no. 15e; Necrocorinthia, no. 1326, p. 323,
fig. 164.