Cypriot Iron Age Red Slip Bichrome Red (BIR)
Cyprus/Chrysochou Valley, Cyprus/Eastern Mesoria, Cyprus/Eastern South Coast, Cyprus/Karpass Peninsula, Cyprus/Kyrenia Mountains and North Coast, Cyprus/Troodos mountains, Cyprus/Western Mesoria, Cyprus/Western South Coast
c. 925/900 to c. 300 BCE
Cypro-Geometric III, Cypro-Archaic, Cypro-Classical
General Information
Bichrome Red Slip (BIR) is a Cypriot Iron Age ware that is essentially the same as Cypriot Black-on-Red (BOR), but with the addition of white paint. A fragment of BOR could of course be from a non-white painted part of a BIR vessel. Red slip covers the surfaces of many Cypriot Iron Age vessels. It can fire red to purple in an oxidizing environment or a brown to blackish color in a reduced environment. In an uneven firing environment the surface appears mottled red and black. Cypriot Red Slip (CRS) is a vessel that is only slipped, not painted. A CRS fragment, however, could come from an unpainted part of a Black-on-Red or Bichrome Red vessel. No examples from the Princeton Cyprus Expedition have been posted so far.
