A New Cup by the Villa Giulia Painter in Oxford

The Ashmolean Museum has recently acquired a fragmentary, but none the less attractive Attic cup. The interior is decorated in the white-ground technique, but the artist has used red-figure on the exterior. The internal and external decoration do not differ merely in technique, however, but also in mood: the central tondo bears a cool, restrained scene of a girl pouring a libation, whereas outside we have a mildly drunken rout—a komos.The interior (Plate XVIIa) is mostly white. There is a broad black band around the edge, at some distance in from which is a dilute brown line which circumscribes the tondo itself. This is decorated with a scene of a girl standing between two altars, over one of which she pours a libation. She faces towards the left and much of her body is seen in three-quarter view. Unfortunately her face is damaged, but enough remains to show that it was once pretty and appealing. On her head she wears a broad cloth band through which her back-hair emerges in a kind of chignon. She wears earrings. A himation edged in red is thrown loosely over her left shoulder and hangs down to well below her knees. Beneath, she wears a flimsy chiton which is pulled revealingly tight over her right breast and is buttoned at the elbow. Bracelets in the form of snakes adorn her wrists, and in her right hand she holds an oinochoe. This last, in common with the bracelets, buttons and earrings, is rendered plastically (i.e. is in relief), and was perhaps originally gilded. To her left, a rod or sceptre leans independently, while on either side can be seen parts of two altars, which, if identical, consisted of two plain, swelling mouldings, somewhat archaic in character, above a row of ovolos, and beneath on the sides, a metope between two dark strips. Some preliminary sketch is visible. Much of the detailed drawing is done in relief line, reinforced around the edges of the garment and on the altar with applied red. Dilute paint is used for the hair, the hem of the chiton and the decoration immediately above it, and for the triglyphs (if that is what they are) of the altars.

Some new platinoid-rich minerals, identified with the electron microanalyser (Plate XVII)

SummaryMinerals approximating to the formulae PtSb2, PtSb, Pt(Sb,Bi), (Pt,Ir)As2, Pt(Ir,Os)2As4, Pd2CuSb, Pd(Sb,Bi), Pd8CuSb3, Pt4Sn3Cu4, and (Fe,Ni)2S have been discovered as fine intergrowths in platinum concentrates from the Driekop mine, Transvaal, South Africa. Conventional ore microscopy also proved the presence of most of the known minerals of the platinum paragenesis. The name geversite is proposed for the phase PtSb2.

Wollastonite solid solutions from Scawt Hill, Co. Antrim

Wollastonite at Scawt Hill, Co. Antrim, ocours as a constituent of both the exogeneous and endogeneous contactzones of the dolerite. In the former it is associated only with flint nodules in the metamorphosed chalk, in the latter, however, commonly as a minor constituent of certain of the hybrid types.In my original account a wollastonite-bearing augite-dolerite from this latter zone was figured without further description in the text (plate xvII, fig. 3). In examining the optical characters of wollastonites associated with hedenbergite, I had occasion to turn again to the wollastonites of this particular rock type.As indicated in the explanation of the figured section (loc. cir., p. 467), the dolerite is built essentially of sharply zoned brown titanaugite, labradorite, wollastonite, iron-ores, interstitial thomsonite, analcime, and accessory sphene. In this aggregate wollastonite forms subidiomorphic crystals averaging 1 ram. in size, and from a series of sections its predominant forms can be readily made out.

A Clay Sealing from Egypt

The object illustrated in Plate XVII, and Fig. 1, would perhaps never have emerged from the obscurity of a description in small type in an official catalogue but for Mr. Dawkins' discovery discussed on pp. 9 f. of this volume. In the British Museum Catalogue of Terracottas (p. 443) it is described as follows, under the number E 93: ‘Hemispherical seal of clay, with eight impressions of gems stamped over it, five representing a lion attacking a goat; another, a bearded head to r, with inscription; the other two are plain stamps.’ It was acquired in Egypt by the Rev. Greville Chester, and purchased from him in 1891.