Pretty Pots on the Table: Dotted Triangle Ware in Late Phrygian Gordion

Resumo

During the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. Gordion was the most important Phrygian city, although it had lost its status as a royal capital after having consequently fallen under Lydian and Achaemenid control. Despite a magnificence long gone, specific elements of the earlier material culture still reminded of the links with the city’s past. Such was a group of ceramics with red painted designs, drawing on the relationship with decorative vocabulary from the most glorious days of the city. The designs include triangles, lozenges and circles fi lled with dots, as well as diminishing triangles, running »S« motif, dots-between-lines, ladder motif, chevrons, stylized wreathes and schematically represented animals. First thought to indicate the presence of a new population in Gordion, they are now recognized as a commensurate part of the local pottery craft. Together with the so-called banded bowls, they formed dining sets for the Phrygian table during the period.