国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

(b) Large and Small Vessels in Coarse Technique.

*Forms.*—In this group, also, the number of forms is very limited. For the most part they are deep cups, or kettle-shaped pithoi, with flat bottoms (fig. 59). These last often have below the lip two or three short projecting horizontal ridges, lying parallel, one below the other, which presumably take the place of handles (fig. 60). More rare are the cups with indrawn margin and flaring mouth, *i. e.*, with narrow throat. They occur only in hard-burnt red clay (fig. 61). Cups with the margin thickened, as in fig. 62, are very rare. Very small cups, which are perhaps copies of larger vessels, are represented in figs. 63 and 64.

In general, the coarser vessels have only a flat bottom, like the examples just mentioned. It is only rarely that one finds a high hollow foot as in fig. 65, a form which was disclosed (March 28–31) in the west digging, between +18 feet and +8.5 feet and in the east gallery (March 25–26) between +18 feet and +8 feet. In the series of the larger vessels belong also the pithoi found *in situ* (see figure of pithoi above, fig. 34, and plate 20, fig. 1; plate 21, fig. 1). They extend still farther the series of forms with their high, often almost cylindrical tapering feet which adapt them to insertion in the ground or to resting in high supports. A remarkable form is that of a spherical vessel with narrow opening (fig. 66), taken from the middle layers. These examples exhaust the series of forms.

*Technique.*—The clay of the coarser vessels is, for the most part, very porous. It is often light-green, white or yellow with a greenish tone; grayish-white, light-brown, or brown-red, and light-red also occur. In contrast with the small vessels of group *a*, their firing was very moderate, but they, too, show a thin color-slip, which, as a rule, corresponds to the color of the clay—light-green, whitish-green, yellowish, brownish, and reddish or light-red. In some cases we find the same violet-red that was seen on vessels in group *a*. On the surface of the coarser vessels there are often visible little elongated depressions, traces of pieces of straw which were originally baked in the clay, and, as a rule, the polishing is wanting. Still, there is a kind of red clay with a covering of red color which resembles the vessels of group *a*. In this group the vessel was polished before being painted (see plate 20, fig. 1; plate 21, fig. 1; plate 24, fig. 3; plate 25, figs. 2–4; plate 26, figs. 1