As they do today, ceramics in the Byzantine era fulfilled everyday functions such as preparing, storing, and serving food. This shallow dish was discovered around 1966 in a shipwreck in the Aegean Sea, near Thessaly, Greece. The boat’s cargo included more than a thousand such pieces of tableware. In this example, red earthenware forms the body of the vessel, which is covered with a layer of white slip (a fine mixture of clay particles suspended in water). As is typical of Byzantine ceramics, the exterior of the dish is left unadorned, while the inside is embellished using the sgraffito (Italian for scratched) technique in which the design is incised into the slip, revealing the contrasting underlayer.
The illustration shows a tailed figure, clad in chainmail armor, with a bird-like head, legs, and arms in combat with a dragon, now mostly erased due to abrasion. The protagonist is armed, not with a weapon but with two potent crosses (with crossbars at four ends) that he appears to juggle in midair. The figure likely represents Digenes Akritas, the Christian hero of a Byzantine epic poem that emerged sometime in the 12th century and survived to have a significant impact on modern Greek literature and culture. Slaying a dragon is one of the many heroic deeds that Akritas accomplished in the course of his life.
