of burnishing, which may be achieved with a smooth pebble or the thumbnail, are often
visible upon close examination. Recent studies have demonstrated that the impressed
or incised decoration on many bucchero vessels was enhanced by the application of a
chalky ochre or cinnabar.7 This would have made the designs much more legible. Very
rarely bucchero was painted. Traces of color, especially white and red, are visible on a few
examples where they either enhance incised figures on bucchero sottile shapes or, more often,
emphasize the relief designs of bucchero pesante, a later category of bucchero production.8
Examples of Tombs in Southern Etruria with the Earliest Bucchero Sottile:
Cerveteri: Banditaccia Necropolis, Tumulo delle Nave, tomb 2, right chamber.9
Banditaccia Necropolis, Tumulo I, tomb 2, right chamber.10
Sorbo Necropolis, Tomba Calabresi.11
Tumulo di Montetosto, tomb 2.12
San Paolo, tombs 1-2 .13
Ceri: Casaletti, tomb 2.14
Veii: Monte Michele, tomb 5, lower chamber.15
Tarquinia: Tumulo di Poggio Gallinaro.16
Experiments conducted by a number of chemists and archaeologists have tried to duplicate
this black pottery. It is important to realize that the clay is black throughout, not only on
the exterior surfaces. It was long ago realized that the distinctive black sheen of bucchero
was not a glaze or slip but rather the result of a reduction firing process that turned
the clay black. In a reduction firing, the fire is stoked and deprived of oxygen so that
a chemical change occurs in the clay. The clay’s ferric oxide is reduced to ferrous oxide
turning it from a reddish-brown color to black. The more complete the reduction, the
blacker the core clay becomes. However, at some sites (notably the Volsinii-Orvieto area)
a less than complete reduction was purposely used to produce a gray variety of bucchero.
(Gray bucchero, a type of undecorated, utilitarian ware, will not be treated in this essay.)
Early archaeologists and connoisseurs noted that there were two basic types of
bucchero: bucchero sottile (“light” bucchero) and bucchero pesante (“heavy” bucchero). In
sottile the shapes are often refined, have thin walls and relatively simple decoration usually
consisting of stamped or incised motifs. In pesante the shapes are larger, heavier (i.e. have
thicker walls) and have modeled decoration. Incision is normally used to outline relief
ornaments. In general, bucchero sottile appears in the earliest phases of production and
is typical of Caeretan workshops in Southern Etruria. Bucchero pesante is a later product
especially common in workshops at Vulci, Tarquinia, Chiusi and Orvieto. If we place the
Figure 53.1a-c Three bucchero sottile kotylai from Cerveteri, Banditaccia Necropolis, Tumulo 1, tomb 2,
right chamber, circa 675—650 BC. Drawings from Rasmussen 1979, p. 187, Figs 116 —118.
a b cCHAPTER 53 :The meanings ofbucchero