Finds

Zeuxippus Ware

Rare and precious ceramic fragments have been unearthed from inside the Palace of Baldu and its ruins, produced in Turkish-Islamic areas.

One of the most valuable artefacts used in the tower was probably a Zeuxippus Ware bowl (figs. 1-2), produced between the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. During the excavation, a fragment of rim with a graffito decoration and a dark green band was brought to light.

1
Fig. 1 - Luogosanto, Palace of Baldu: fragment of Zeuxippus Ware (inner surface) (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).
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Fig. 2 - Luogosanto, Palace of Baldu: fragment of Zeuxippus Ware (external surface) (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).

The production sites of Zeuxippus Ware ceramics were located in some centres of the Aegean islands and Greece (fig. 3), although the first producer was Constantinople and its surrounding areas.

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Fig. 3 - Greece, Ilion: fragment (front and back) of Zeuxippus Ware (from http://classics.uc.edu/troy/grbpottery/html/byz-glazed.html).


These specimens reached Sardinia on Pisan or Genoese merchant ships, but findings in the Island are still very rare (fig. 4).

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Fig. 4 - Geridu, medieval village: fragment of an engraved Zeuxippus Ware bowl (from MILANESE, BICCONE 2008, p. 136, fig. 7).


Because of the high value and the sophistication of this pottery, its presence inside the Palace of Baldu clarifies the high social status of those who spent short or long periods in the tower.

Bibliografia

  • G. BERTI, L. TONGIORGI, I bacini ceramici medievali delle chiese di Pisa, Roma 1981, pp. 275-276.
  • S. CASSON, T. RICE, G. F. HUDSON, A. H. M. JONES, Preliminary Report upon the excavation carried out in the Hippodrome of Constantinople in 1927 on behalf of the British Academy, Oxford 1928, p. 34.
  • A. H. S. MEGAW, Zeuxippus Ware, in The Annual of British School at Athens, 63, 1968, pp. 67-68.
  • M. MILANESE, L. BICCONE, Le ceramiche dal Mediterraneo orientale in Sardegna, in Atti del XL Convegno internazionale della ceramica: Italia, medio ed estremo oriente: commerci, trasferimenti di tecnologie e influssi decorativi tra basso medioevo ed età moderna (Savona-Albisola Marina, 11-12 maggio 2007), Firenze 2008, pp. 129-136.
  • M. MILELLA, Ceramica e vie di comunicazione nell'Italia bizantina, in Mélanges de l’Ècole française de Rome. Moyen Âge T. 101, n. 2. 1989. pp. 533-557.
  • F. PINNA, D. CORDA, Scambi e circuiti commerciali nella Sardegna medievale: dati archeologici dal Palazzo di Baldu (Luogosanto, Olbia-Tempio), in Bulletin de la Société des sciences historiques et naturelles de la Corse, 2014, pp. 748-749.
  • Logudoro. Prima campagna archeologica nel villaggio abbandonato di Bisarcio, in Unione Sarda, 4 ottobre 2012.

 

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