Pontic Group

It is assumed, that the vases were produced in Etruria by craftsmen who had emigrated from Ionia.

Their misleading name was coined by Georg Ferdinand Dümmler on the basis of a vase depicting an archer, whom he mistook to be a Scythian, a people who lived on the Black Sea (or Pontus).

The majority of Pontic vases were found in graves at Vulci, a further considerable number at Cerveteri.

The shiny slip covering them is black to brownish-red, of high quality, with a metallic sheen.

They depict mythological motifs such as a beardless Hermes, centaurs, Theseus and the Minotaur, Achilles and Troilos, satyrs, maenads and a beardless Herakles, similar to depictions common in East Greece.

Diomedes and Polyxena , Pontic amphora by the Silenus Painter , circa 540/30 BC. Paris : Louvre .
Judgement of Paris on the name vase of the Paris Painter , amphora, circa 530 BC. Munich : Staatliche Antikensammlungen .