Further Comments on Archaic Greek Inscriptions

In JHS LXIX (1949), 25 ff., I commented on various Greek inscriptions, mainly archaic. This is a second series on the same lines. The inscriptions are listed geographically, if possible under the relevant headings of Inscriptiones Graecae ; when the inscription discussed is not in IG , the heading is bracketed. [ IG I 2 .] Attica. Graffiti on Attic ‘SOS’ amphorae (Fig. 1). In Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen I (1923), 127, Pfuhl described a type of amphora of which stray examples have been found in many parts of the Mediterranean world, in contexts of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. The clay and paint resembled that of Attic pottery, some of the examples had actually been found in Attica, and, though describing it as ‘ eine noch ungelöste Frage ’, he was inclined to agree with those archaeologists who called the ware Attic. This was later proved beyond doubt by the American excavators of the Athenian Agora, when they found there numerous examples of the whole series, from its start in Geometric times to its decline during the sixth century. They are described thus by R. S. Young: ‘Their decoration is conventional and very simple; the body is glazed, with reserved bands around the shoulder, and the neck is reserved and decorated with wheels, concentric circles, or diminishing triangles between wavy lines.’ A typical and often-quoted example, showing the wavy-line-and-circle (‘SOS’) decoration of the neck, is that carried by Dionysus on the François Vase, painted by Kleitias c . 570. They are big enough to carry wine or oil; after Solon's legislation they can have carried only oil to the far parts where they have been found. Their size made them useful, when empty, for urn-burials; most of our examples come from cemeteries.