Description/Abstract/Artist Statement
ODU's Special Collections department has in its care a collection of five Cypriot vases, dating to the late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age on the island of Cyprus. The vases in Special Collections and University Archives came to ODU in 1968 from Dudley Cooper, who received them from the government of Cypress in 1963. This collection has never been studied intensively before. As a group, we have drawn to scale, measured, photographed, and created three-dimensional renderings of each vase in the collection. Through careful documentation of the vases, we have been able to identify reasonable comparanda for them among the corpus of Cyprus vases, allowing us to refine their dating and place them within a typology, helping us understand their function and purpose. One such function could be to hold wine, evidenced by the trefoiled lips made for pouring and the handles. Studying the appearances of these vases can help in further identification efforts. The amount of preservation seen in the vases has led us to the conclusion that they must have originally been found in tombs. This would point to them being used for funerary feasting and drinking. Based on these observations, the next steps for providing more insight into the history of these vases could be examining materials, stylized decorations, and their cultural context.
Faculty Advisor/Mentor
Jared T. Benton, Laraann N. Canner
College Affiliation
College of Arts & Letters
Presentation Type
Poster
Disciplines
Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture
Session Title
Interdisciplinary Research #7
Location
Zoom Room GG
Start Date
3-20-2021 3:00 PM
End Date
3-20-2021 3:55 PM
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Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age Ceramic Vases: The Documentation and Identification of ODU's Cypriot Vase Collection
Zoom Room GG
ODU's Special Collections department has in its care a collection of five Cypriot vases, dating to the late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age on the island of Cyprus. The vases in Special Collections and University Archives came to ODU in 1968 from Dudley Cooper, who received them from the government of Cypress in 1963. This collection has never been studied intensively before. As a group, we have drawn to scale, measured, photographed, and created three-dimensional renderings of each vase in the collection. Through careful documentation of the vases, we have been able to identify reasonable comparanda for them among the corpus of Cyprus vases, allowing us to refine their dating and place them within a typology, helping us understand their function and purpose. One such function could be to hold wine, evidenced by the trefoiled lips made for pouring and the handles. Studying the appearances of these vases can help in further identification efforts. The amount of preservation seen in the vases has led us to the conclusion that they must have originally been found in tombs. This would point to them being used for funerary feasting and drinking. Based on these observations, the next steps for providing more insight into the history of these vases could be examining materials, stylized decorations, and their cultural context.