Bowl with Inscription in Cypriot Syllabic Script

This simple, hemispherical bowl is plain on the exterior. On the interior, there is a raised ridge at approximately the midpoint between the bottom and the rim (1). There is also a small raised boss on the bottom of the bowl in the interior. The rim is thicker than the walls, causing the rim to overhang the wall on the interior slightly. Just below the rim are seven incised characters of the Cypriot syllabary stating that the owner of the bowl was Echewoikos. Votive vessels with ownership inscriptions are known from the eastern Mediterranean in the Geometric and Archaic periods, not only on Cyprus but also exported into the Aegean region (2). This bowl is unusual in terms of the placement of the inscription, which is on the interior rather than the exterior, and it is the only one of its type, with a raised horizontal ridge on the interior, to bear an inscription (3). NOTES: 1. For this type of vessel, see H. Matthäus, Metallgefässe und Gefässuntersäatze der Bronzezeit, der geometrischen und archaischen Period auf Cypern, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 2.8 (Munich, 1985) 109-12, nos. 312-24, pl. 18. 2. For a list of similar inscriptions, see R. Schmitt, “Eine neue kyprische Gefässinschrift,” Kadmos: Zeitschrift für vor- und fruhgriechische Epigraphik 30.2 (1991): 128-30, esp. 129. For a general description of Cypriot bronze bowls of this type, their chronology, findspots, and inscriptions, see H.-G. Buchholz and H. Matthäus, “Zyprische Bronzeschalen der geometrischen und archaischen Periode,” Cahier du Centre d'Etudes Chypriotes 33 (2003): 99-148. 3. Buchholz and Matthäus 2003 (supra 2) 100. Lisa M. Anderson