Πρωτοαττικός αρύβαλλος (Πίν. 27-29)

Abstract

A charming aryballos in the small collection of the department of Art and Archaeology in the University of Thessaloniki. At first glance one might take it as a protocorinthian, but it is a protoattic vase. That is to say it is a protoattic imitation of other protocorinthian vases and specially of the « Vogelprotomengruppe » of J.L. Benson ( Die Geschichte der Korinthischen Vasen, Basel 1953, 14 ). There are many examples of protoattic vases imitating similar protocorinthian. But no other imitation has the early attic «άκρίβεια» of the vase in Thessaloniki. The author dates the vase in the last quarter of the 8th c. B.C. and thinks that the plaine but «daemonic» vulture busts are reminiscence of the early Corinthian monumental painting, as well as the vulture busts of the protocorinthian group of which an imitation is the vase in Thessaloniki.