Lydian Bichrome Ware is one of many versions of a widespread style of painted decoration that was especially common throughout Anatolia and the Levant in the Iron Age. Lydian Bichrome ware is most abundantly documented at Sardis, the capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Lydia. At least two sub-versions have been identified: white and red. The distinction is based on the initial step in decoration.
White Bichrome vessels carry a bright and often thickly rendered creamy-white slip, which was applied in broad bands. Over this slip, decoration was painted in red or/and brownish black (Gurtekin-Demir 2002, 120:3). The white slip varied in thickness and texture. On some vessels it is heavy, opaque, and smooth; on others it is thin and essentially fugitive. Common painted ornaments on White Bichrome include concentric circles, cross-hatched or latticed squares, chequerboards, lattices and triangles. The common shapes of white Bichrome are the pitcher, one-handled cup and dinos (Gurtekin-Demir 2002, 119:7).
Red Bichrome, instead, uses the reserved and smoothed body of the pot as the background color, with added designs in black, red and white (Ramage, Ramage, and Gurtekin-Demir 2020, 15-16). The most popular design in red Bichrome is the concentric hook. Other common ornaments are pendent and ascendant concentric semicircles and wavy lines. Popular shapes are the skyphos, skypho-krater, oinochoe, and amphora (Gurtekin-Demir 2002, 119-120).
White Bichrome is the first attested; examples appear in the 9th c. BCE. There is some evidence that vessels with thicker, opaquer surface paint may be the earliest, while those with less well-preserved white were more popular in the second half of the 7th century (Ramage, Ramage and Gurtekin-Demir 2020, 15-16). Red Bichrome was popular especially during the 7th century BCE (Gurtekin-Demir 2014, 234:1).
Other local expressions of this widespread style are Philistine Iron Age Bichrome Ware, Phoenician Iron Age Bichrome Ware, Cypriot Iron Age Bichrome Ware, Cypriot Iron Age Red Slip Bichrome Ware, and Phrygian Iron Age Bichrome Ware.
