Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)
DÉNES GABLER AND ANDRÁS MÁRTON: Head-Pots in the Antiquities Collection
a century between the Asia Minor lagynoi with human head spouts, and the pieces from North Africa. By contrast, U. Mandel and, more recently, M. Flecker 83 give an earlier date for the North African workshops. According to them, they began about 200 AD, or the first half of the third century: the "drunken old woman" type of lagynos being the earliest in the series. 86 The head-shaped spout is similar to figure vases from the Pullaeni workshop. 87 The shoulder decoration of the vases is comparable to pieces made in the Lnccei workshop. 88 According to Mandel, the Navigius workshop began well before the time of the tetrarchy, probably around the mid-third century at least. This renders explicable the observed agreements with the A-C type relief ware from El Aouja, and the connection, datable around 200, between the Cnidian oinophoroi and their North African imitations. 89 The various hairstyles observable on headshaped vases play an important role in his argument. The tower-type hairstyle covering the top of the head, which was fashionable from the mid third century, is not represented here; but the bun-type hairstyle, worn low on the neck, popular in the Severan period, is common. 90 By contrast, the moulds used to model the face suit later third-century hairstyles. Relying on published pictorial data, this train of thought is difficult to follow. Is it even likely that the makers of lagynoi had to follow every single shift of style in portrait sculpture? 91 U. Mandel moreover assumes a certain "provincial backwardness" as well. In the case of the African provinces, it is likely that artists stuck for a long time to their Severan prototypes. It is hard to imagine the active period of the Navigius workshop having lasted so long, down even to the end of the tetrarchy. But we can agree with Mandel when she dates the later products of the workshop and its wider circle to the Constantine age; a dating recommended also by Salmonson in his discussion of the Louvre jug in the shape of a boy's head. 92 The workshop of the Navigius circle produced for a rather smaller market than other North African pottery workships. Their products have been found mostly in the central part of Tunisia, and sporadically in Cyrenaica, 9 ' Only one piece from an Italian villa is recorded. The North African head-pots described above have until now been found only in graves: 94 which is also true of the oinophoros groups as a whole. 95 The jugs, which represent satyrs, maenads, youths, or drunken old women, are easily related to the cult of Dionysus or Bacchus, who, identified with the Roman Liber Pater, was widely worshipped in North Africa. The Dionysiac mysteries express the initiate's hope for a new life after death; but the oinophoroi were a part of everyday life, used as pouring or drinking vessels at symposia, or for washing —its function in death cult was therefore clearly secondary. The North African pottery workshops were found on prosperous latifundia whose main economic basis was provided by olive plantations and grain crops. "The possessor fundi almost cer-
