Fikellura Style - IV

Pyxis, small container, in the Fikellura style. The shoulder is decorated with a row of partridges.

 

The so-called Fikellura style identifies a class of the eastern-Greek ceramics whose production was located in southern Ionia, near Miletus. This style develops from the average phase of the so-called “Wild Goat Style”. Its name comes from the small town of Fikellura, located on the island of Rhodes, near Kamiros, where important findings took place in the 2nd quarter of the last century. The Fikellura style dates between 560 and the early beginning of the V century BC, when Miletus was destroyed by the Persians (494 BC). The style of the Fikellura ceramics is very similar to that of the small ionic masters and, in the context of eastern-Greek ceramics, stands out both for simplification and reduction of the ornaments, both for the ease of the composition, previously exhibited on pots decorated with friezes of real and fantastic animals, according to the orientalizing taste.

If Samos, Rhodes and Miletus were the primary sites of their origin, the Fikellura ceramics were popular in the southern region of the eastern Greek colonies. Their export covered a wide area including Egypt (Naukratis, Tell Defenneh), South Aegean region, Cyprus, Pontus and the west coast of the Black Sea, the Cyclades (Delos, Rheneia), and Aegina. In the late sixth century BC the export of the Fikellura ceramics starts to decrease, probably because of the competition from the Attic workshops.

 

Fikellura pyxix

Height 21 cm; diameter 16,9 cm,

Made in Miletus

550 - 530 BC.

From Kremasti, Rhodes

Rhodes, Archaeological Museum

 

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