Lead-Glazed Beaker

Beginning in the 100s B.C., small, bowl-shaped vessels decorated with swirling patterns of raised dots were popular tableware. The dots covered the vessel forming abstract swags or festoon designs. This pottery with its thin walls and patterned decoration imitated vessels in metal and glass. Unlike most pottery, these vases were not wheel thrown, but were made in molds. This so-called thin-walled ware always had either a plain red surface or it was glazed black. This Roman pottery beaker, however, displays an unusual combination of two pottery techniques, each of which was meant to look like metal. The unknown artist of this cup combined the dot decoration found on thin-walled ware with a different technique for the surface finish, lead-glazing. The shiny golden or green surface of lead-glazed pottery imitated the sheen of metal. A revival or rediscovery of an ancient Near Eastern pottery technique that had been out of use for centuries, lead-glazed pottery began to be produced on the coast of modern Turkey in the first century B.C.