Attic Late Geometric funerary amphora showing processions of men and chariots - ROM2005_4056_6

ROM2005_4056_6

Attic Late Geometric funerary amphora showing processions of men and chariots

Medium:Wheel-thrown earthenware, slip-painted.
Geography: Made in Athens, Greece; found in Phaleron near Athens
Date: about 710-700 BC
Period: Greek Late Geometric IIb period
Object number: 929.22.10
On view
Gallery Location:Gallery of the Bronze Age Aegean
Description

This Athenian amphora is decorated in silhouette technique with four friezes of stylized figures. The top frieze on the neck shows grazing deer. Beneath is a frieze showing a procession of men with long hair or helmet plumes. On the shoulder are grazing deer and a goat. In the main body frieze  are four chariots with charioteers and a horse and rider. 

It can be identified as a funeral amphora, rather than an amphora intended to be used to hold liquid, because the moulded snakes on the rim would make pouring the liquid difficult, and the deliberately cracked base meant that it was no longer water-tight. It would have been used as a funerary marker, and the scenes decorating the amphora should be interpreted as a funerary procession. Similar scenes appear on other Attic funerary vases of this period.

Attributed to the painter known as the Stathatou Hand (Painter of Athens 894) by Cook and Davison.

Collection:
Greek World
Bibliography:
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