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

DÉNES GABLER AND ANDRÁS MÁRTON: Head-Pots in the Antiquities Collection

Pergamené relief bottles with gladiatorial duels, or the ornamental w

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reaths on the edges of lamp disci. Single-handle jugs with relief decoration tend to end in a head of Dionysus, a female head, or an African head; they use the typical wide-mouthed oinophoros shape. Such pieces can be dated by the hairstyles to the third to fourth centuries AD.

34 Like the vases of similar type used in Egyptian festivals of Dionysus (Lagynophoria),

35 the figure jugs and lagynoi with spouts decorated with heads are connected to the cult of that god.

36 Cnidus was the main centre of production for these types, not only on the basis of forms and ornamental iconography, but also by the colour of clay and slip.

37 In the Hadrianic and Antonine periods, closed vases with relief ornament were mass-produced on the island. Types belonging to the oinophoroi have been found in the Western provinces and in North Africa, a large market for import-ware of that shape. Types similar to Asia Minor wares were made in several other places outside North Africa and Mexandria. There may have been a workshop in Athens'

8 and in the western Pontus region.

39 Cnidus thus inspired a whole school of ceramic production in areas far from Asia minor. Import wares from Asia Minor probably influenced pottery workshops in North Africa already from the late second or early third century AD; most strongly, perhaps, the potters of Africa Proconsularis.

m Workshops in Tunisia made mass-produced imitations of Cnidian lagynoi with relief ornament and head-shaped spouts.

41 Dionysiac iconography played a defining role in the decoration. The earliest Tunisian imitations of Asia Minor oinophoroi are dated according to the hairstyle of Faustina Minor to the end of the second century AD.

42 One parallel from a dated mid third-century context in the Athenian agora makes it at least likely that the series of lagynoi with head-ornament continued down to the early third century.

43 This observation fits well with existing general impressions concerning the duration of oinophoros production.

44 The relative and absolute chronology of the series rests on archaeological, stylistic, and antiquarian grounds. It is possible that this shape began with prototypes from Asia minor produced in oinophoros workshops, the end of the series being marked by the imitation wares from workshops in North Africa, which derived from imported Asia Minor wares. The majority of lagynoi with head ornament from North Africa are rather later in date. In the closing decades of the third century and the first decades of the fourth, the workshop of Navigius and his circle produced lagynoi with head-shaped spouts, head-shaped vases and other relief wares.

43 In the case of pieces of African provenance, it is often hard to tell whether they belong to the Asia Minor import "originals" or the North African imitations. This in turn makes dating more difficult, since the lagynoi from Asia Minor belong, at the latest, to the first half of the third century. The prosopographical results: along with inscriptions relating to the Pullaeni