Double Daunian askòs

Fully preserved double askòs belonging to the Daunian banded ceramic production, thrown probably on a slow wheel. It shows a polychrome decoration (dark brown with red-orange and diluted pink fillings) consisting of horizontal bands painted over a flattened globular body and a plane base. It has two cylindrical necks, with outsplayed flattened rim, one of which is provided with a filter; the vertical handle is made of a ribbed strip placed horizontally between the two necks. The polychrome decoration fills up the whole surface of the vessel: the inside of the necks has the initial part coloured in orange, while the outside is divided by pairs of bands. Starting from the rims of the long necks there is, after a red band, a reversed wave motif followed by a large net pattern; on the globular body, after a red band, we find a second reversed wave motif with another pink band, succeeded by a large strip filled with a vegetal undulating scroll, by a pair of lines and by a small chain motif; last, on the bottom, a star-shaped ornament.

Our vessel belongs to the “banded” ceramic class, which originated and developed in Canosa between 350 and 200 BC, while other Daunian pottery kilns were progressively disappearing (Todisco L., Introduzione all’artigianato della Puglia antica dall’età coloniale all’età romana, Bari 1992, pp. 10-13). Canosian artisans were able to renovate their decorative and formal repertory, giving birth to a vessel production in which the ornamental motifs, framed by bands, are spread on the whole surface of the vase. Notwithstanding its acknowledged originality, “banded” pottery is directly connected to the local tradition and, in particular, to the floral-geometrical style of the so called sub-geometrical Daunian III. More specifically, our askòs seems to belong to the beginnings of that phase called “Banded C” (first half of the III century BC), in which pink and violet are added to a monochrome brown or black decoration, thus anticipating that taste for polychromy that will characterize Canosian vessels produced in the Hellenistic period (Rossi L., Ceramiche apule nel Museo di Cremona, 1981, p. 26).

Vases are by now wheel-thrown and new shapes, such as double or triple askoi, appear. Decoration will progressively become thicker with bands increasing in number and, subsequently, it will comprise also zoomorphic as well as anthropomorphic figures, still absent on our exemplar.