Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)

JÁNOS GYÖRGY SZILÁGYI: Archaic Pottery from Veii

ARCHAIC POTTERY FROM VEII JÁNOS GYÖRGY SZILÁGYI András Szőllősy, the recently deceased composer and important exponent of modernism in Hungarian music, went to Rome in 1948 to study with Goffredo Petrassi. While on a day-trip to the site of ancient Veii, he met a local man on the road leading up towards Isola Farnese from the station of Formello-La Storta, and purchased from him a number of freshly excavated vases, which (the man said) had been found by chance during digging work and which, by his account, came from a local grave. For Szőllősy, who was not much interested in archaeology, the vases were souvenirs. Several (bucchero, if I remember rightly) were lost, others given away as gifts (of these, two could be identified and are included in the present publication), and one was given to the Antiquities Collection of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts in exchange for cleaning of the others. Mthough his collection includes an Apulian red-figure kantharos and an Attic red-figure pelike from the middle of the fifth century BC, there is no reason to doubt the local provenance of the pieces from Veii. For this reason, their publication is not perhaps without interest, even if the precise location and circumstances of the find are and will remain unknown.

1 1. OLLA. Hand-made, thick-walled brown or dark red impasto (5YR 3/3-4/4). Height: 19 cm; diameter of mouth: 11,3 cm; largest diameter of body: 19,4 cm. Intact, wdth minor chips on the edge of the mouth (pl. 1). Ovoid body narrowing toward the bottom, ending in a flat, very slightly concave bottom. Short neck, flaring lip. Four symmetrically placed bosses on the shoulder. The vase is of a type commonly used for ossuaries. In size and the proportions of the body there are several variants.

2 It is common in southern Etruria, and especiallv in Cerveteri, but