Situla (vessel)

Situla, from the Latin for bucket or pail, is the term in archaeology and art history for a variety of elaborate bucket-shaped vessels from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages, usually with a handle at the top. All types may be highly decorated, most characterisically with reliefs in bands or friezes running round the vessel.

Decorated Iron Age situlas in bronze are a distinctive feature of Etruscan art in burials from the northern part of the Etruscan regions, from which the style spread north to some cultures in northern Italy, Slovenia, and adjacent areas, where terms such as Situla culture and situla art may be used.

Situla is also the name for types of bucket-shaped Ancient Greek vases, some very finely painted. More utilitarian pottery situlae are also found, and some in silver or other materials, such as two Late Antique glass ones in St Mark's, Venice. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern shapes tend to have a pointed bottom, so that they must rest on a stand or on their side. The practical wider shape is a European invention, first seen in the European Bronze Age.

Typically Iron Age situlas are bronze, as in the types of libation vessels found as grave goods in Etruscan graves, the Este culture (example, the Situla Benvenuti) and neighbouring Golasecca culture, and the eastern zone of the Hallstatt culture of Central and Southeast Europe. Here they have a distinctive style, often without a handle; the Vače situla is a Slovenian example. These usually have sides sloping outwards, then a sharp turn in at the shoulder, and outside Etruria often a short narrower neck. The shape has similarities with the narrower spouted Etruscan shape of flagon that was also copied to the north, as in the 5th-century Basse Yutz Flagons found in France. They are often decorated, in the most elaborate examples with several bands of figures running round the vessel. They may or may not have handles, and sometimes have lids. Many are made of several sheets held together with rivets.

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