doi: 10.2143/AWE.20.0.3289527 AWE 20 (2021) 21-50 SITULAE WITH PALMETTES: VRATSA, WALDALGESHEIM AND THE VAGARIES OF A MOTIF* ATHANASIOS SIDERIS In memory of Jan Bouzek Abstract This paper studies the motif of the palmette on Greek bronze ovoid situlae, mainly of the 4th century BC. It traces its origin through Late Archaic and Early Classical examples to Ionia and Athens and discusses the two principal groups named after the find-spots of two typical paradigms: the Vratsa and Waldalgesheim groups. A detailed typology of several subgroups is developed in the text and organised in a catalogue as an appendix. The spread of the motif on various toreutics and jewellery is documented from Hellenistic Bactria to the Celtic North and West, as well as in Thrace and Scythia. The paper argues that this wide diffusion of the palmette-and-scrolls motif owes much to the circulation in these areas of Greek metal vases, and especially of bronze situlae. The situla from Vratsa Among the bronze vessels found in tomb 2 in the Mogilanska tumulus of Vratsa (north-western Bulgaria) there is a bell-shaped situla with an ornamented rim and a floral motif under the rings for its arch-shaped swivelling handles (Figs. 1–2). 1 The assemblage included also an undecorated hydria, an epichysis (or spouted jug) with a palmette on the handle attachment, a second undecorated bell situla, and a large plate with a floral motif on the attachment for the ring handle, all made of bronze, plus four phialae, a jug and a pine-cone rhyton made of silver. 2 Tomb 2 has been variously dated from the first to last quarters of the 4th century BC. Nevertheless, the presence in the tomb of a black-glazed cup of the early second quarter of the 4th century BC, should restrict the deposition date to between 370 and 350 BC. 3 * An early version of this paper has been presented in the conference held on the occasion of the 50th jubilee of the discovery of the Mogilanska tumulus in Vratsa, north-western Bulgaria, Regional Historical Museum of Vratsa, 12–13 November 2015. I am very grateful to Annareta Touloumtzidou who read a draft of the paper and made several valuable suggestions and comments. 1 Venedikov 1977, 87, 101–02, no. 27, fig. 47 (in the figure caption he erroneously refers to it as coming from Pudria, a village near Vratsa); Paunov and Torbov 2000, 169–70, fig. 4a–b; Torbov 2005, 82, 101, no. 72, pl. 12.3. 2 Paunov and Torbov 2000, 165–71, figs. 1–3, 5; Torbov 2005, 101, nos. 64–74, pls. 11.1–2, 12.1–2, 4. 3 Torbov 2005, 102, 148, no. 75, pl. 13.3.