This Red Slip Ware jug with plastic decoration of a female figure on the shoulder is a typical example of Cypriot pottery in the Classical period. Most jugs of this kind carry female figures holding an oinochoe that also functions as the mouth through which the contents of the vase were poured. Other examples feature an animal head. The production of these jugs commenced in the Cypro-Archaic II period, towards the end of the 6th c. BC, and lasted until Early Hellenistic times. The chief production centre was Marion, on the northwest coast of the island. This is also the site where the majority of imported Greek vases of Classical times has been found; in fact, it has been suggested that this pottery type was created to compete with imported Greek vases. In the course of the Cypro-Classical period analogous vases began to be made in other parts of western Cyprus. Initially the craftsmen decorated the vases almost exclusively in Bichrome Red technique, but during the Cypro-Classical and the Early Hellenistic period they were made in other styles too, such as White Painted, Polychrome and Red-Slip Ware. The fact that almost all such jugs have been found in graves has led researchers to propose that they were mostly used for funerary libations.