f - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

CORINTHIAN BASINS ON HIGH STANDS 357
production. Bowls are not so heavy; overhanging rims almost always carry ribbon lug
handles, and the two groups of red and dark ridges are always present. Stands are still
cylindrical, sometimes with entasis, set on high circular bases with the same ridges. The
floor of the bowl is covered by a layer of volcanic or "grog" particles, in order to protect it
from wear and tear.
During the 4th century B.C. a very few changes in the type are recognizable (40, 53b,
55, 62, 99). Variants from the standard type of basin in the Classical period are 92, 94, 97,
98, 102, 103, 106, 107, 116-119. In Hellenistic times the connections between Corinthian
clay basins and the marble specimens, mostly Attic-Cycladic, become more pronounced
(108, for example).
The nucleus of the following catalogue is formed by 97 partially preserved artifacts in
the Archaia Korinthos Museum. To widen the scope of this study, several other examples of
Corinthian manufacture have been added to corroborate or add to the typological picture
constituted by the finds from Corinth itself. These consist of 2 fragments preserved in the
archaeological collection of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 10 frag-
ments from the excavations conducted at Isthmia for the University of California at Los
Angeles (U.C.L.A.), stored at Isthmia, and 13 fragments from the Athenian Agora.2
THE CATALOGUE
The question of the specific use for which these objects were intended, and consequently the
problems of the function and naming of the basins (distinguishing between the louterion, or
the "lay" basin, and the perirrhanterion, or the "sacred" basin), are closely tied to the archaeological
contexts, described below; these questions are examined in the study which will
appear in the ASAtene.
A study was undertaken of every impressed or painted ornamental motif as well as an
investigation of the iconographical details. Groupings have been made to include specifically
Corinthian decorations and more generically Greek decorations. Some decorative types
have been little studied up to this time, and so a brief outline of the development has been
created in order to date our materials specifically.
In the profile drawings, I have for purely practical reasons adopted certain conventions.
On the basins with applied lug handles, one representative handle has been shown frontally,
because only in a few cases is it certain that there were actually four symmetrically
placed handles along the rim; in addition, it is easier to appraise the profile without the
2 The numerous examples from Isthmia excavated by the University of Chicago are being studied by
H. Butzer.
All examples in this catalogue have been systematically studied and described according to their techni-
cal, morphological, and decorative features. The principal aim of this investigation is to make known a num-
ber of finds of which only a few have been published. These have been classified according to typological and
chronological criteria, forming as comprehensive a body of data as is presently possible and which will serve as
the basis of a future study to be published in the ASAtene 46, 1984. Both parts of this project are the result of
my research undertaken during the years 1982-1983 at the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens.