Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Österreich, Graz

The first volume of the CVA Graz contains 93 objects originating from workshops of the East Greek area, the island of Cyprus, the Greek homeland and the Western Mediterranean, like South Italy or Etruria. These pieces are shown to the scientific community to a large extent for the first time. They encompass a wide range, both geographically and chronologically, and offer different ceramic wares and shapes of ancient pottery. The vases presented here are part of the Antiquities Collection of the Department of Archaeology at the University Graz, which has been launched from an educational collection already founded in 1865. The book presents six almost completely preserved vessels of the Cypriote Bronze Age of the 2nd millennium BC for the first time, except for one. This exception, a White Painted Ware beaked jug, was already published by Paul Åström in 1972. Among the geometric pottery, the intact vessels or fragments from the Kerameikos of Athens are particularly noteworthy. One of them is a fragment of a monumental crater of the Dipylon workshop that matches with fragments housed at Göttingen and Athens and leads to further considerations of reassembling works of these dispersed Dipylon vessels. Regarding the Corinthian pottery two large alabastra of the Luxus-group emerge significantly not only by their paintings, but also by their common origin from a famous Etruscan grave, the Tomba dei principesca Quattordici Ponti at Capua. The Attic red-figure style of the 5th century BC is represented undoubtedly as the most prominent style. Its development is documented by a remarkable hydria by the Berlin painter, three Nolan amphorae and a number of kylikes. Attic glazed ware, Boeotian and Etruscan products are also included in the publication as well as South Italian vases from Apulian, Campanian, Sicilian, and Lukanian-Apulian workshops. A lid of a Campanian pyxis is of particular importance due to its frieze-like, narrative depiction, but also because of the high quality of its painting. Just a collection as that of the Department of Archaeology at the University Graz, which was put together less by aesthetical criteria rather than for educational purposes, may give us many insights into various puzzles that the study of ancient pottery has yet preserved for us.