Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Cyprus Private Collections i (Cyprus 2)

The second CVA Cyprus fascicule completes the projected publication of vases in the Mycenaean style which are now in Cyprus. Whereas the first contained a selection from the Cyprus Museum at Nicosia and the Larnaca District Museum (see E. Vermeule, AJA 69 [1965] 188-189), this fascicule publishes all the pertinent material of six private collectors: G. G. Pierides (formerly Larnaca, now Nicosia), Z. D. Pierides (Larnaca), P. Kolokassides (Nicosia), G. M. Michaelides (Nicosia), N. P. Lanitis (Limassol), and M. Gaffiero (Nicosia). Although the provenance is uncertain, the majority of vases in the two Pierides collections probably came from the Larnaca district (Kition, Klavdia, Arpera, Hala Sultan Tekke, etc.), and those in the Lanitis Collection from the Limassol district, perhaps from Kourion.
In method the present fascicule is similar to the first: full descriptions, bibliographic references to previous publications and to comparative material, and generous large-scale photographs, often with several views. Photographically CVA Cyprus 2 is if anything superior to the first, but the text is less detailed. In addition, there are line drawings of profiles and decoration of the important Proto-White-Painted group, as well as facsimile drawings of the incised and painted signs in the Cypro-Minoan syllabary (here a concordance to the plates would have been helpful). The arrangement of this fascicule by collections makes for a less orderly sequence than in the first[...].
These two fascicules of the CVA will be an indispensable source of illustrative material for scholars dealing with Mycenaean pottery from the Levant and its derivatives. Karageorghis has a real appreciation of the artistic value and historical implications of this material, and he is not content with the diminutive photographs or cursory descriptions of many of the older publications of Mycenaean pottery from Cyprus.
Review by: Sara A. Immerwahr
American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Jan., 1967), pp. 103-105