Made from reddish clay. Painted with parallel red lines surrounding the channel spout and further red bands of paint with parallel lines in between. At the base of the handle is a potter’s mark of two incised horizontal strokes.

Beaked jugs, with a distinctive backwards-leaning spout, are characteristic products of the Geometric period. This fragment is of a type where the handle and spout are directly attached, whereas some examples have an entirely separate spout and handle. This type of jug usually is decorated with a series of bands encircling the neck and shoulder of the jug with a pattern below the lowest band. There are however a few exceptions, such as this fragment, where the bands gaps are filled with decoration. It has been suggested that this design is intended to look like a necklace below the ‘head’ of the vase. Potters’ marks like the visible here were usually inscribed before firing, with the handles of beaked jugs were a favoured place for such marks.

Provenance

Excavated at Phylakopi, Melos, c. 1899; Thomas Dinham Atkinson (1864–1948), by whom bequeathed to Winchester College in 1948.