SAMIAN AMPHORAS - The American School of Classical Studies at ...

SAMIAN AMPHORAS 77
graph I have shows a groove round the neck at about the halfway point; it shows
also the cuffed outside of a toe that might be rather like that of Figure 3, 2, i.e. it
seems to have slightly concave sides.63
Consider now this Figure 3, 2, Agora P 18988 with context of the last quarter of
the 5th century, of which a photograph is shown in Plate 15, 5. This amphora had
been entered tentatively in the Samian series because of its cuffed toe, its rounded
body, by now rather narrow, its handles broad in section and without finger impres-
sions on their lower attachments, its neck articulated below (by a faint groove)
although by now spreading (rather than narrowing) to the shoulder; the lengthening
of the neck, handles and body corresponds with the latish date in the 5th century B.C.
The clay of this amphora, however, while similar in color to preceding items in the
Samian (?) series, is virtually without mica. Of jars mentioned above of which the
clay is known to me, only in AP 1491 (see note 47) and perhaps in P 8858 (Fig. 2, 3)
is it as nearly non-micaceous as in P 18988; note that both the other jars are frac-
tionals. It may turn out that P 18988 was not made in Samos, but belongs to a series
somehow related to the Samian. It should be recalled that its shape seemed to be
closest to that represented in the Samian stamp, Plate 15, 10 (above, p. 67), although
in the stamp the handles are shown a bit longer in proportion.
Micaceous clay as well as the profile of the rim, also (save for length, increased
at the later date) that of the handles, associate Figure 3, 1 rather with Figure 3, 3,
another shape made up of two fragments, Agora P 27530 and 27531, from a deposit
again of the last quarter of the 5th century.64 The middle of this shape has been
restored with an eye to Plate 15, 9, an amphora apparently of a slightly later period,
seen in Samos in 1958. Note especially in the drawing Figure 3, 3 again a cuffed toe,
but having now a slight flare, only a small depression underneath, and the interior
reaching to just below the top of the cuff. A toe like this, not quite so high, was found
in the same deposit of the third quarter of the 5th century as the neck P 25426 (see
above, with note 61) which it greatly resembled in fabric. If this top and toe are
from the same amphora, then apparently we have a prototype for Figure 3, 3.
Characteristic of the developed form is the long spreading neck with a break in
its line, the offset easily visible in Figure 3, 3; also the elegant flaring rim, as well as
the cuffed, slightly flaring toe. A feature noticed in several pieces is their unexpectedly
heavy weight in the hand. In addition to Plate 15, 9, I have seen a second example in
63 Thasos, Lazarides inv. no. 5557r; from the excavations of 1950. I owe the photograph and
information to Mme. Lilly Kahil, who further told me that the amphora had apparently been
found set in an earth floor, with blackfigure and redfigure pottery near its mouth. Unpublished.
64 Deposit S 16:1. The area was excavated in May, 1965, by an expedition from Brown Uni-
versity working in collaboration with the American School of Classical Studies; R. R. Holloway,
Hesperia, XXXV, 1966, pp. 83-84 for the well. Of the amphora restored as Figure 3, 3, from
the fragments P 27530 and P 27531, the height is restored as 0.735. The deposit is dated ca. 425-
400 B.C. (Agora, XII, p. 398). Figure 3, 3 may date near the beginning of this period.