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

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

In their influence on North African craftsmen, the import ceramics of Asia Minor produced a characteristic local pottery type. The maenad type was imitated also in the Navigius workshop: as is shown by an exemplar that appeared a few years ago on the Paris antiquities market.

58 It is possible that this Asia Minor type, very broadly diffused in the middle Empire, "wandered" to North Africa in the course of the development of the local pottery industry. The imitation of the oinophoros type is also documented in North Africa. A group of small relief ware bowls recall in their style and motif the decoration of die lagynoi. The earlier decorated bowls are comparable in the style of their ornament to lamps of the first half of the third century.

59 The iconography of the lamps predates the ceramic production of the Navigius workshop; for this reason, it is likely that these lamps provides the patterns for the iconography of the Navigius vases.

60 Vases no. 3 and 4 both belong to the production of these North African workshops. The wide funnel spout is a characteristic feature of head-pots from Tunisia.

61 The jug in the shape of a youth's head is, to judge by the signature, from the workshop of Ta(c)hinas.

62 Several head vases of Tahinas are in the Löffler collection of the RömischGermanisches Museum in Cologne.

63 Navigius too signed a vase with a similar head. An almost identical piece without signature was found at Raqquada, and is in the collection of the Carthage /Museum. The potter was active in central Tunisia in the first half of the fourth century.

64 On the basis of signed pieces, we can say that his workshop made vases in the shape of a youth's head, a woman's head with characteristic North African hairstyle, and a female head close in form to the classical "maenad" type. The piece in the shape of a satyr's head was probably made from the same dish mould as a piece in a German private collection.

65 Similar stamped hair details can be seen on a stayr's head vase which appeared on the German market before ending up in a private collection in the Netherlands. The latter piece was certainly from a different mould.

66 The stamp on the spout shows that it came from the workshop of Olithresis (Olitresis/ex oficis). Mthough the face and formation of the hair is very similar on the two pieces, there are a number of important differences: the neck of the Dutch piece is narrower and taller, the beard is missing, the browwrinkles less marked, and the hair over the headband was not made à la barbotine-but rather stamped. The similarity of the the two pieces, and the style of the stamps used to make the hair, shows that the Budapest piece too may have come from the workshop of Olithresis. An identical piece in the Löffler collection certainly comes from that workshop.

67 A very similar piece, probably from the same mould dish, is known from Haidra,

68 and carried the stamp of Tahinas.

69 Another vase in the shape of a headband-wearing satyr, now in the Marx collection