LATE GEOMETRIC PERIOD, CIRCA 720-700 B.C.

Of this skyphos, R. Hampe and E. Simon (op. cit., 1981, p. 158) remark, “At Athens, as at Corinth, one can see signs of new development in the later eight century. There is a type of drinking-cup…which was inspired by metal cups of Phoenician origin. They have been found in the Athenian Kerameikos and at other sites. The Oriental models have interior friezes, and the clay cups imitate this decoration in the same place but in more modest form. [On this example]…there are three striding bulls. Their bodies are dark silhouettes; their heads, with the large eyes, are done in outline...At this period the filling ornaments (mostly zigzags) become restless and begin to waver – a sign of the impending dissolution of Geometric ornamentation.”

For a similar example in Athens with two concentric friezes of deer to the interior, see figs. 35b-c in J.N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece; also compare a skyphos at the Getty Villa with one concentric frieze of deer (inv. no. 79.AE.117, fig. 451 in N. Spivey and M. Squire, Panorama of the Classical World).