The god Apollo spoke through his priestess at Delphi, and Greek cities competed for his favor with offerings.

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi,” in Smarthistory, February 23, 2016, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/sanctuary-of-apollo-at-delphi/.

Explore the development of the Doric order in the temples of the city of Poseidon, the god of the sea.

Explore the evolution of ancient Greek sculpture with two groups from the same temple, but that seem ages apart.

Note: Recent scholarship suggests that both pediments of the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina were made at the same time in the Early Classical period, likely by two different workshops working in two different styles.

East and West Pediments from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, Archaic/Early Classical Periods, c. 490-480 B.C.E. (Glyptothek, Munich)

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “East and West Pediments from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina,” in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/east-and-west-pediments-from-the-temple-of-aphaia-aegina/.

Archaic ideals

From 600 to 480 B.C.E., ancient Greek cemeteries and sanctuaries were filled with marble statues of beautiful young men and women. The images of nude young men are today called kouroi (singular: kouros), the ancient Greek word for boy, though we do not know if they were called kouroi in antiquity. Their female counterparts, korai (singular: kore), wear richly painted robes and accessories made of expensive metals. Kouroi and korai are highly idealized images. Rather than showing people as they actually looked, they are representations of youthful perfection as envisioned by the Greek aristocrats who commissioned them in the Archaic period. These elite individuals conflated bodily beauty with moral excellence, so from their viewpoint, the idealized statues of young men and women that they commissioned displayed both inner and outer greatness. Kouroi and korai broadcasted the wealth and ideals of their patrons, revealing much about Archaic society.

Origins of kouroi and korai

Greek sculptors began to experiment with making statues out of marble in the second half of the seventh century B.C.E. The earliest examples of marble kouroi come from Naxos and Paros, Cycladic islands with natural supplies of marble. Greek artists and patrons may have been inspired to create kouroi after seeing life-size stone sculptures of men and women in Egypt, which opened its borders to foreigners around 650 B.C.E. Greek kouroi borrow their stiff, upright postures from Egyptian statues of humans (such as King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen).

A few unfinished kouroi that were abandoned in quarries on Naxos show us that sculptors did much of their preliminary work before the marble block was moved from its excavation site. They probably began to sculpt the block into a kouros before it was sent to its final destination to reduce its weight, allowing for easier transport. Sculptors likely traveled with the partially sculpted blocks to finish them near where they were erected.

Shortly after the kouros form was invented in Naxos, clients from other Greek cities began to commission kouroi. In the first half of the sixth century B.C.E., Naxian and Parian sculptors made kouroi for patrons in Attica and Boeotia in mainland Greece, and exported statues to sanctuaries throughout the Greek world.

Korai became popular soon after kouroi. Like kouroi, many of the earliest korai were made in the Cyclades, but they do not seem to have been based on Egyptian models. Whereas early korai are extremely modest and show almost no indication of their bodies beneath their robes, Egyptian statues of women tend to show more of their form. Greek sculptors may instead have been inspired by images of women they saw on Near Eastern objects like metal vessels and elaborately decorated furniture, which were imported into Greece in large quantities during the Archaic period. They may also have adapted their previous works in the Daedalic style. Daedalic sculptures of women (like the Lady of Auxerre) are richly dressed and rigid like the korai that followed them, but korai are rounder and more columnar than Daedalic statues, embodying a new ideal of feminine beauty.

The changing ideal

Standard kouroi and korai are easily recognizable because of their shared characteristics. They are made of marble and stand in stiff, upright postures. They have Archaic smiles that imbue them with a sense of vitality. Their hair is elaborately coiffed, and korai sometimes wear metal headpieces. Kouroi are nude, displaying their slim, athletic bodies, but korai always appear clothed in luxurious dresses and cloaks. Whereas male nudity was embraced in Archaic sculpture because men’s bodies were celebrated as objects of beauty and strength, female nudity was still considered inappropriate and immodest. Although kouroi and korai all have these basic traits, their appearances vary depending on when and where they were made.

Just as today’s beauty ideals differ between countries, different regions of the Greek world preferred different types of kouroi. On Samos, an East Greek island with an important sanctuary dedicated to Hera, kouroi were rounded and smooth. A colossal kouros dedicated in Hera’s sanctuary demonstrates these preferences. Standing more than 15 feet tall, this statue has a fleshy body with no indication of individually defined muscles or bones. Its sculptor carved it so that the veins in the marble compliment the body’s curves, emphasizing its roundness,  wide eyes, and bulky bodies.

In contrast, Athenians preferred kouroi with slender bodies, lean muscles, and large heads, like the New York Kouros. Attic kouroi changed over time, becoming more naturalistic as sculptors grew more comfortable working with marble and patrons’ tastes changed. The Anavysos Kouros, made some 50 years after the New York Kouros, has a more realistic face than its predecessor. The later kouros (the Anavysos Kouros) has a wider body that more closely resembles that of an actual man. Although the Anayvsos Kouros is more developed than the New York Kouros, it still has rigid posture, intricately braided hair, and an Archaic smile.

Attic korai also evolved during the sixth century B.C.E. The earliest kore dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis is today called the Pomegranate Kore because she holds a pomegranate in her left hand. Her costume is relatively simple, hanging from her body in straight lines, though it would have been more elaborate in antiquity when it was painted. Sometime after this kore was made, Athenian sculptors changed the costumes of their korai to look more like those worn by East Greek korai (such as the kore from the Heraion of Samos), who sport intricately folded garments draped diagonally across their upper bodies. This change reflects the shifting fashion preferences of Athenians in the Archaic period.

By 530 B.C.E., Athenian korai wore pleated, East Greek style cloaks over their dresses, as we can see on a kore made by the artist Antenor. This later kore has a slightly more active posture than her predecessors and her body is more visible beneath her gown. Like the Anavysos Kouros, Antenor’s kore is more naturalistic than the korai made before her, but she is still easily recognizable as a kore.

Identifying kouroi and korai

Despite these regional and chronological differences, kouroi and korai generally resemble one another and were immensely popular throughout the Archaic period. What did ancient Greeks use them for, and who did they represent?

When kouroi and korai acted as grave markers, they usually represented the dead person whose grave they marked. They were not realistic depictions of the dead, but instead showed an idealized version of the person they commemorated. The statue’s identity would only be recognizable because of the inscription that accompanied it, usually on its base but sometimes on its clothes or body. Today, many kouroi and korai are found without their bases, making it harder for archaeologists to determine who they honored. We do know that the Anavysos Kouros marked the grave of a man named Kroisos because of the inscription on its base. The statue commemorates Kroisos in what Greeks believed to be the most perfect state, on the cusp of manhood, creating the most ideal memory possible.

Funerary korai like the Phrasikleia Kore, a particularly well-preserved statue made between 550 and 530 B.C.E., served similar functions. The inscription on the base of this kore identifies the deceased as Phrasikleia, a maiden who died before she was able to marry. The kore is an image of a perfect young Athenian woman. Much of the red paint on her gown survives, and it is incised with ornamental rosettes and meander patterns. She holds a lotus bud in her left hand, wears lotus bud earrings, and sports a lotus crown. The lotus was a symbol of maidenhood, and its multiple appearances on this kore remind us of Phrasikleia’s youth and the tragedy of her death.

It is more difficult to determine the identities of the kouroi and korai that were set up in sanctuaries as offerings to the gods. People dedicated these statues to demonstrate their devotion to the gods. Some made their offerings in hopes of securing the protection or approval of the gods, while others dedicated the statues as thank-you gifts in exchange for something they believed the gods had done for them. Like their funerary counterparts, these votive kouroi and korai were often accompanied by inscriptions, but these texts identify the dedicator rather than who the statues represent. It is unlikely that votive kouroi and korai depicted the people who dedicated them because some inscriptions show that men dedicated korai.

Some kouroi and korai may have represented the deities to whom they were dedicated, but we can only securely identify them if they carry attributes. For example, the Peplos Kore, which is just one of dozens of korai that were dedicated to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, may represent Athena. She wears an unusual costume that sets her apart from other korai, but because her arms do not survive, we can’t tell whether she held the goddess’s attributes. This kore and others like her might instead represent actual young women who served the goddess as attendants. Athenian families could have honored their daughters by dedicating these idealized images to Athena. Just like kouroi, korai were especially expensive and permanent offerings that allowed their dedicators to show off their wealth and devotion to the gods at the same time.

The decline of rigidity

Kouroi and korai began to decline in popularity towards the end of the sixth century B.C.E. They were so emblematic of Archaic elite ideals that they likely seemed conservative to viewers after a new, more democratic government came to power in Athens and began shifting focus towards civic (rather than individual) greatness. When the Persian Empire invaded Athens and burned much of the Acropolis to the ground in 480 B.C.E., the Archaic period came to a close and kouroi and korai fell out of fashion entirely. After the Persian attack, Athenians carefully buried the damaged korai that once stood on the Acropolis in the sacred ground, disposing of them in a respectful manner. They and their male counterparts were replaced by increasingly realistic images of men and women in dynamic postures. The rigidity of the Archaic period was abandoned, and naturalism became a key artistic trait of the Classical period that followed.

Cite this page as: Dr. Monica Bulger, “Kouroi and Korai, an introduction,” in Smarthistory, May 11, 2021, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/kouroi-korai/.

This early Greek depiction of the idealized male form displays power and poise in his nudity and steadfast gaze.

Footnotes

“Stay and mourn at the monument of dead Kroisos, who raging Ares slew as he fought in the front ranks.”

Anavysos Kouros, c. 530 B.C.E., marble, 6 feet 4 inches high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

Grave markers or votive offerings

In the late Archaic period, this over life-size statue stood above the grave of a man from a wealthy Greek family, grandly marking his tomb. With its idealized body, rigid posture, and distant gaze, the statue still commands attention today, long after it was completed around 530 B.C.E. By looking closely at the statue, we can learn quite a lot about the ancient Greeks who looked upon it centuries ago.

This statue is an example of the kouros (plural: kouroi) type of Greek sculpture. The ancient Greek word kouros means “youth” or “young boy,” but we don’t know if the ancient Greeks called these statues kouroi—modern scholars were the first to use the term to describe them. [1] A kouros is a statue of a young, nude male. The young age of the kouros is evident in his beardless face, which indicates that he has not yet fully matured into adulthood.

Kouroi are usually entirely nude, though some wear headbands or necklaces. Although kouroi take one small step forward, placing their left foot in front of their right, they are rigid and stiff, holding their clenched fists close to their sides and tensing their muscles. Throughout the Archaic period, Greek sculptors made kouroi that functioned either as grave markers or as votive offerings given to the gods.

Influence of Egypt

The Greek sculptors who invented the kouros type may have been partially inspired by Egyptian stone sculptures. [2] Just before the beginning of the Archaic period, interactions between Greece and Egypt increased, creating more opportunities for Greeks to see Egyptian statues. Like Greek kouroi, Egyptian statues of elite men are often stiff and rigid, and they are made of stone, a durable and expensive material. However, there are two major differences between typical Egyptian sculptures of men and Greek kouroi. First, whereas kouroi are always nude, Egyptian sculptors usually showed men clothed (elites, like the priest named Tjayasetimu who is depicted in this image, wear kilts). Second, kouroi are fully separated from the block of stone from which they are carved. Although they are stiff, they stand without support. Many life-size Egyptian stone sculptures, including this one, rely on stone supports to stand up. These differences reveal that, while the Archaic Greeks may have taken Egyptian statues as inspiration, they created their own type when they invented the kouros.

An ideal

For the Archaic Greeks, kouroi were the perfected images of masculinity. They embody a specifically Greek ideal. The Anavysos Kouros is one of the best preserved examples of this ideal. His face is symmetrical, with wide staring eyes and a slight smile. His smile is not meant to convey that he is happy. This expression, known as the Archaic smile, is instead intended to make the statue appear more lifelike. The hair of the kouros is also symmetrical and elaborately styled. Curls are arranged across the figure’s forehead, while long braids of hair fall down his back. This elaborate hairstyle conveys the wealth of the individual represented. A thin ribbon runs around the crown of the kouros’s head, seemingly holding a cap in place. [3] Traces of red pigment are still visible on the eyes and hair of the kouros’s head. [4] Like most ancient Greek statues, the Anavysos Kouros was originally brightly painted. Much of that paint has now faded, leaving the whitish marble visible.

By comparing the Anavysos Kouros to an earlier kouros, we can see how the style of kouroi—and the ideal they embody—evolved throughout the Archaic period. Like the Anavysos Kouros, the New York Kouros is stiff and rigid. Both kouroi stand with their hands clenched at their sides and take one step forward with their left legs. Both have patterned hair and Archaic smiles. Both also originally functioned as grave markers and were probably set up close to each other in the same cemetery. [5] However, the Anavysos kouros is more naturalistic, or lifelike, than the New York Kouros in several ways. The Anavysos Kouros has much more rounded, fully developed muscles than the New York Kouros does. In comparison, the muscles of the New York Kouros look almost like patterns carved into the stone rather than volumetric muscles. The face of the Anavysos Kouros is also more naturalistic than that of the New York Kouros, with more realistically proportioned facial features and more attention to the transitions between parts of the body.

To create a more naturalistic image, the sculptor of the Anavysos Kouros has carved further into the block of marble than the sculptor of the New York Kouros did. Although the Anavysos Kouros’s hands are still attached to his thighs by small pieces of marble, ensuring that they would not break off, these supports are much smaller than the larger attachments that fuse the New York Kouros’s hands to his sides. The Anavysos Kouros’s rounded muscles make him appear fleshier and more lifelike. He is still idealized—no real person could actually be this symmetrical—but he is more naturalistic than the New York Kouros, which was made 50 years before he was.

Not discovered by archaeologists

This statue is called the Anavysos Kouros because it was found near the town of Anavysos in Greece. Unfortunately, this statue was not discovered by archaeologists. Looters first uncovered the kouros in 1936, and soon smuggled it out of Greece so that it could be sold in Paris. In order to get the large statue out of the country, the smugglers sawed it into ten pieces. [6] One of their cuts is still visible just above the kouros’s navel. When the statue was returned to Greece in 1937, conservators were able to piece almost all of it back together, mending much of the damage that was done.

Almost 20 years after the Anavysos Kouros was returned to Greece, a statue base found near Anavysos was given to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Many scholars believe that the Anavysos Kouros originally stood atop this base. The base is inscribed with ancient Greek text that commemorates the person whose grave it marked. In translation, the text reads: “Stay and mourn at the monument for dead Kroisos whom violent Ares destroyed, fighting in the front ranks.” [7]

This moving inscription tells us much about the person who was buried beneath it. His name was Kroisos, and he died while fighting in a war. [8] He is celebrated as an accomplished warrior, “fighting in the front ranks” against the enemy, destroyed by “violent Ares,” the god of war himself. The text encourages viewers to “stay and mourn” the deceased. Together with the kouros that stood above it, it demands the attention of passersby and asks them to remember the man it memorializes.

The Anavysos Kouros is an idealized representation of a man in his prime. Kroisos could not have actually looked like this statue. No real, living person is so symmetrical or stiff. Moreover, Kroisos was a soldier, and so he must have been a bearded adult when he died. [9] But this statue is not intended to depict Kroisos as he actually appeared. It instead presents an image of a perfect man, as imagined by the Archaic Greeks. His nudity allows him to show off his perfected musculature, which conveys his strength. The wealthy family who had this statue made to mark the grave of their dead loved one chose it because it would forever project an image of perfection, making the ideal memory of their relative permanent in stone.

Footnotes

In one of his memorable anecdotes, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus recounts the events of a fateful day in the city-state of Argos (on the Peloponnesian Peninsula). A priestess of the goddess Hera found herself unable to get to an important religious festival because her oxen were still out plowing the fields, too busy to pull her and her cart to the temple. Improvising quickly, the woman’s two sons Kleobis and Biton strapped themselves to their mother’s cart and pulled her more than 5 miles to the sacred site. Everyone at the temple praised the young men, and their mother asked Hera to give her sons the best gift they could receive. That night, after the religious festivities, Kleobis and Biton went to sleep in the temple of Hera and died peacefully. Herodotus explains that death was the greatest gift the goddess could give them: they died in their prime, surrounded by the praise and love of their family and fellow citizens, who would honor their memory forever. At the end of this tale, Herodotus writes that “the Argives made and set up at Delphi images of them [Kleobis and Biton] because of their excellence.” [1] In the early 1890s, archaeologists believed they found these very images.

Recognizing Kleobis and Biton

In 1893 and 1894 French archaeologists uncovered two extremely similar kouroi (statues of idealized nude male youths that functioned as grave markers or offerings to the gods) while excavating the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. At first glance, the pair appear to be typical examples of the kouros type. Like other kouroi, they were erected in a sanctuary, where they functioned as both commemorative monuments and gifts to the gods.

 

The pair of statues from Delphi stand rigidly upright with their arms held close to their sides, much like the New York Kouros and other kouroi made in the beginning of the 6th century B.C.E. Their muscles are indicated with thin lines, showing their power and strength. Their slight smiles and symmetrical braided hairstyles are also standard characteristics of Archaic Greek sculpture.

 

Despite the many similarities they share with other kouroi, several details differentiate these statues and suggest that they are the images of Kleobis and Biton mentioned by Herodotus. They are bulkier than other kouroi, with especially broad chests and thick limbs. Their burly bodies seem to recall the deed that made them famous by clearly demonstrating their strength and even visually relating them to the oxen that were supposed to bring their mother to the festival. They seem to flex their muscular arms, almost as if they are still pulling their mother’s cart. Moreover, unlike most kouroi, these statues are not entirely nude.

 

Close inspection of their feet reveals that they were originally shown wearing soft boots, which would have been more visible when the statues were in their original painted state. [2] Boots like these were often worn by travelers, and may have been appropriate footwear for Kleobis and Biton as they trekked to the temple with their mother in tow.

Decoding Inscriptions

All of these visual indicators suggest that the pair of kouroi from Delphi represent Kleobis and Biton. However, like other kouroi, the statues are so idealized that they probably do not closely resemble the people they represent. Rather than being honored with realistic portraits, men who were commemorated with kouroi forever projected a perfectly idealized image to those who walked by their monuments.

Generally, the man honored by a kouros was not identifiable by the statue itself, but by an inscription that accompanied the statue on its base. As a result, only kouroi that are found with their inscribed bases in modern excavations can be identified with any certainty. This is the case with the Anavysos Kouros, the base of which tells us that the statue was dedicated for a soldier named Kroisos.

 

Like the Anayvsos Kouros and many others, the kouroi found at Delphi stood on plinths (bases supporting statues) that had Greek inscriptions carved into them. The text inscribed on the plinths of the Delphi kouroi is heavily damaged and difficult to read, leading to scholarly debate about what it originally said. Some scholars believe that the inscriptions identify the pair as Castor and Pollux, the divine twins together known as the Dioscuri, rather than Kleobis and Biton. [3] The Dioscuri were well known by the ancient Greeks, who believed they helped young athletes succeed in their competitions. The Dioscuri’s interest in assisting atheletes might make their images especially appropriate dedications at Delphi, which hosted athletic games that attracted competitors from across Greece every four years.

However, the re-identification of the kouroi as Castor and Pollux rather than Kleobis and Biton has been discouraged by recent scientific analysis of the surviving inscriptions. This study has shown that only a few words on one of the plinths are preserved well enough to be read with any certainty. [4] The text does not indicate that the kouroi represent Castor and Pollux, but instead tells us the name of the artist who made them. Translated into English, the words mean “[Poly?]medes the Argive made it.” While the artist’s name is partially lost, he is described as Argive, which seems to further support an identification of these two kouroi as the Argive brothers Kleobis and Biton. Even so, the extreme idealization of this pair of kouroi makes them appear to be almost super-human, and their original viewers may have also been reminded of the divine Dioscuri when they looked at these images. [5]

Preserving Memories with Images

In the midst of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, which was believed to be the center of the ancient Greek world, and was visited by pilgrims from hundreds of miles away, the kouroi of Kleobis and Biton drew attention to themselves. Standing more than 6’ tall, these statues had a commanding presence that would encourage passersby to stop and look at their images. These ancient visitors may have read the inscriptions on the statues’ plinths to learn their story. Having died as heroes in their youth, Kleobis and Biton achieved a sort of immortality through these images. By erecting this pair of kouroi in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, the Argive people made the memory of Kleobis and Biton permanent, ensuring that visitors to Delphi would forever be impressed by the brothers’ excellence.

What’s in a name? Discover whether this ancient Greek offering is an idealized young woman or a goddess.

Peplos Kore, c. 530 B.C.E., marble, 1.2 m high, from the Acropolis, Athens, Greece (Acropolis Museum, Athens). Speakers: Dr Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

The Acropolis was one of the holiest places in ancient Athens, full of temples and dedications to the gods. In 480 B.C.E., many of the sacred buildings and statues on the site were damaged by an invading army. In the decades that followed, the people of Athens carefully buried some of these broken votives in pits on the Acropolis, keeping them within the confines of the holy land but removing them from view. Thousands of years later, in 1886, Greek archaeologists excavated one of these pits just northwest of a temple known as the Erechtheion. Within it they found several statues of young women. The most famous of them is today known as the Peplos Kore.

When she was first found, the Peplos Kore was recognized as an especially beautiful example of the kore (plural: korai) statue type. Korai are statues of richly dressed young women that were popular in the Archaic period. Archaeologists also believed she wore a simple garment called a peplos, and so she came to be called the Peplos Kore. However, new research focused on the paint and metal additions that once adorned the Peplos Kore has revealed that she is wearing a different garment altogether, and may in fact represent a goddess. In the following paragraphs, we will consider how the Peplos Kore compares to other Archaic korai and how her original appearance differs from her contemporary one.

Like other korai, the Peplos Kore represents an idealized young woman. Her face is smooth and symmetrical, embodying the Archaic ideal of female perfection. Her slight smile, known as the Archaic smile, is another trait that is typical of korai and their male counterparts, kouroi (singular: kouros). The Archaic smile is meant to convey a sense of liveliness rather than signal a happy emotion. The Peplos Kore’s hair is carefully combed and styled into wavy strands, which are further detailed with carved lines that indicate individual hairs. [1] Three of these strands fall in front of each of her shoulders, adding to the overall sense of symmetry in the statue. The kore’s elaborate hairstyle resembles those of other Archaic korai and contributes to the impression that the woman represented here is an idealized, if generic, elite.

Upon first glance, the Peplos Kore seems to have the same rigid posture that we expect of Archaic korai. However, looking more closely reveals that she is slightly asymmetrical. Her shoulders are not completely straight like those of the stiffer Phrasikleia Kore. Instead, the Peplos Kore’s left shoulder is very slightly higher than her right, reacting to the movement of her arm, which (though now missing) once reached out in front of her. The bottom of her cape is not exactly parallel to her belt, rising up slightly on the right. Her head turns a tiny bit to the left. [2] All of these small adjustments make the Peplos Kore appear more natural and lifelike than many other Archaic korai. [3]

The Peplos Kore’s clothing is also unlike that of a typical kore. When she was first found, scholars believed that she was wearing a peplos, a garment that is made of a single rectangular piece of cloth. The cloth of the peplos is wrapped around the body and folded down at the top, with the flap of cloth usually hanging down to the waist. The peplos is then pinned at the shoulders and belted at the waist. As we can see on the caryatid from the Erechtheion, who sports a peplos, the garment leaves the woman’s arms bare. The so-called Peplos Kore does not have bare arms, and her garment is not pinned at the shoulders, suggesting that she is not wearing a peplos.

In fact, when we look at the back of the Peplos Kore, we find that she is wearing a short cloak or cape over another garment. A closer look at the front of her skirt provides another hint that she is not wearing a peplos: the marble is carved in a way that suggests two rectangular pieces of cloth are hanging vertically from just below her belt, indicating that some kind of sash held part of her garment in place. [4] Just above her feet, below the hem of her skirt, part of a pleated undergarment is visible. [5]

In antiquity, when the Peplos Kore was brightly painted, it would have been much easier to determine what she was wearing. When we see the statue today we might notice traces of red paint on her hair and face and dark painted patterns on her clothes. When the kore was first found in the late 1800s even more paint was visible on her, as Émile Gilliéron documented in a watercolor painting of the statue that he made shortly after she was excavated. The watercolor shows traces of blue and green paint on the kore’s cape and skirt that are no longer visible to the naked eye.

Recent research has further clarified what the Peplos Kore originally looked like and what she is wearing. In the early 2000s, a team of researchers led by Vinzenz Brinkmann used new scientific methods and technologies to analyze the paint on the Peplos Kore. Their work revealed more about the remarkable painted decoration that once adorned the statue and confirmed that she is not wearing a peplos. We can see what she is actually wearing in one of the reconstructions proposed by Brinkmann. Atop her pleated undergarment, the kore wears a long sheath-like dress that is decorated with representations of animals. That dress is partially covered by the short cloak that the kore wears around her shoulders and by a mantle that she wears wrapped around her lower half, which is held in place by the sash with hanging tassels, and left open at the front to reveal the animal decoration of the dress below. [6]

The creatures that decorate the kore’s garment were an especially unexpected discovery. The dress is decorated with real and mythical animals, including a lion, a goat, and a sphinx, in a series of square panels. [7] This unusual decoration led scholars to reconsider the identity of the Peplos Kore: while most korai are understood to represent idealized but generic young women, this kore is distinguished by her elaborate, animal-covered dress, and more likely represents a specific individual. A gown embroidered with animals would be especially appropriate attire for Artemis, the goddess of wild animals and the hunt. Although the Peplos Kore was found buried on the Athenian Acropolis, which is sacred to the goddess Athena, Artemis also had a small sanctuary on the hill and may well have received dedications there. [8]

Additional details visible on the statue support the idea that the Peplos Kore is actually an image of the goddess Artemis. There is a hole in the kore’s right fist, suggesting that she once held an object made of metal. Although the kore’s left forearm is now missing, her posture reveals that she once held it out in front of her, likely grasping another object. The goddess Artemis was known to be an excellent archer, and is sometimes shown holding a bow in her left hand and an arrow in her right, as she is in one statue that is now in Boston. [9]  If the kore originally held a metal bow and arrow then her identity as Artemis would be unquestionable. [10]

If we look at the statue from above, we see 35 holes encircling her head, as well as a central metal rod that still projects from the center of her head. These holes once secured an elaborate metal wreath or crown to the kore’s head, further distinguishing her from other, less decorated korai. [11]

Today, the metal attachments and elaborate paint that once enriched the Peplos Kore are absent. Without them, the kore looks quite similar to other Archaic korai. She is frontal and at first glance stiff, though further examination reveals that she is shifting slightly. She appears to wear a rectangular garment that could easily be mistaken for a peplos. It is only when we consider the decorative elements that are now missing from the Peplos Kore that we come to a better understanding of who she really was. With her brightly colored, layered garments and metal attachments, she would’ve been easily recognizable as a specific individual, quite likely the goddess Artemis. Examining the Peplos Kore reminds us that years of erosion and wear can significantly change the appearance of ancient artworks and affect our understanding of their original significance.

Footnotes

Following the collapse of Mycenaean palace society and a period of relative poverty and isolation, Greece experienced a cultural and political renaissance. From the eighth century B.C.E. onwards, renewed contact with the Near East, Anatolia, Phoenicia, Egypt, and other peoples around the Mediterranean had a profound impact on Greek culture.

The linear Geometric style of pottery (image above, left) gave way to “orientalizing” motifs, such as animals and florals (image above, right). Homer composed his epic poems and a new political unit, the city-state (polis), emerged.

Greek pottery: a new direction

The figure scene that occupies the highest register in the bowl above shows the new direction in which Athenian vase painting was moving. It shows gods, goddesses, nymphs and others processing to the house of the hero Peleus to celebrate his wedding to the beautiful sea-nymph Thetis.

The sea-nymph Thetis was loved by both Zeus, king of the gods, and Poseidon, god of the sea. However, their ardor was cooled when they learned that Thetis’ son was destined to be greater than his father.

The gods decided that Thetis should be made to marry a mortal in order that her son, however powerful, should present no threat to the gods. They chose Peleus and to reconcile Thetis to this inferior alliance, they gave the couple a magnificent wedding, illustrated on this vase. Peleus stands to the right, before the doors of his house to greet his guests, who arrive either on foot or by chariot.

Among the first is the wine god Dionysos, who carries a vine branch laden with grapes (above, third figure from the right), symbolizing the wine that will be drunk at the wedding feast, perhaps mixed in a bowl of this shape. The centaur Cheiron, part man and part horse, also appears; he later became the tutor of the son of Peleus and Thetis, the mighty Achilles. Thetis is decorously concealed within. The names of the guests are written neatly alongside.

The first chariot in the procession carries Zeus and Hera, the second Poseidon and Amphitrite, the third Hermes and Apollo and the fourth Ares and Aphrodite. Between the chariots walk groups of Fates, Graces and Muses, one of whom plays the pipes. Athena and Artemis ride in the last chariot, and are followed by Thetis’ grandfather, the fish-tailed sea-god Okeanos, his wife Tethys, and Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth. Hephaistos brings up the rear, seated side-saddle on a mule.

Between the columns of the house, Sophilos has signed the vase “Sophilos painted me.” Sophilos is the first Greek vase painter whose name we know.

Conservation

When this black-figured vase was acquired by The British Museum in 1971, it was in a restored condition with only a few areas of loss. It has since come to the Museum’s Conservation Department three times. On the first visit, a conservator repositioned fragments with the artist’s signature, Sophilos, so that it was easier to read. A few years later the Museum acquired five fragments which had originally belonged to the vase. Conservators removed areas of gap-fill to allow these fragments to be reunited. Neither job was simple. The old restoration was hard and difficult to remove.

Conservators were able to reassess the old restoration when the vase was examined during gallery refurbishment in 1983. The old adhesive and gap-fills were identified as a polyester resin, which had hardened and become brittle; there were cracks in the stand which may have been a direct result. Today, this type of resin is not considered appropriate for use on ceramic artifacts. It was decided that the vase would benefit from dismantling and reassembly using more stable and reversible conservation materials. Taking down the old joins and fills and manually cleaning away the polyester resin from fragments was a long process. The fragments were reassembled using a reversible adhesive and areas of loss were gap-filled using plaster of Paris and painted.

© Trustees of the British Museum

Cite this page as: The British Museum, “Sophilos: a new direction in Greek pottery,” in Smarthistory, March 2, 2017, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/sophilos-a-new-direction-in-greek-pottery/.

A storybook

270 figures run, fight, and dance across the surface of the François Vase. While the decoration seems dense and busy to our modern eyes, an ancient viewer would have known all of these mythological stories from oral tradition and epic poetry and could identify each figure with the help of the 121 labels that accompany them. Let’s take a close look at scenes on the vase to better understand how it was used as a functional story book in the ancient world.

An Italian named Alessandro François found hundreds of fragments of the vase that now carries his name while excavating an ancient Etruscan tomb in Italy in the mid-1800s. Though found in Italy, the François Vase was made around 570 B.C.E. in Athens, Greece. In antiquity many Athenian vases were exported to Etruria, a region in Italy where consumers were eager to acquire Greek products.

Potter and painter

We know the names of the people who made the François Vase because they signed the vessel twice: Kleitias as painter, and Ergotimos as potter. This pair of artists collaborated on at least two other vessels that survive in fragments. The unconventional shape of the François Vase and its elaborate, well-planned decoration suggest that Kleitias and Ergotimos were an innovative team.

The François Vase is a volute krater (a vessel used for mixing water and wine with curling handles) and is likely one of the earliest vases of its type made in Athens. [1] The shape of its handles and its particularly large size create more space for painted decoration, which Kleitias, the painter, took advantage of. Kleitias used the black-figure painting style, which was popular among Athenian artists in the Archaic period. His work is dense but careful, and his attention to labelling figures and objects made his decoration even more legible to its original viewers. The neat labels of Greek text that accompany and identify many of the characters on the vase still help us understand its imagery today.

Heroes and gods

The François Vase is decorated in registers (horizontal bands of decoration sometimes referred to as a frieze). The main register appears at the center of the vase. It is the tallest register, and is one of only two, to show a single uninterrupted narrative around the vase’s entire circumference (the other is on the foot of the vase). This register shows the marriage of the hero Peleus to the nymph Thetis, a celebrated event attended by the Greek gods. This popular myth appears on several other vases painted in the early Archaic period, including a bowl made by Sophilos.

In this scene the wedding guests process towards Thetis, who sits in a grand house. Peleus stands outside of the house greeting a wise centaur (centaurs are half-man and half-horse) who will later mentor his and Thetis’s son, Achilles. The painter of the François Vase inserted himself into this central scene: beneath the clasped hands of Peleus and the centaur, a painted inscription reads ‘Klitiasmegraphsen,’ or ‘Kl[e]itias made me,’ as if the vase is declaring who painted it. The centaur is followed by female deities and Dionysos, god of wine, who carries an amphora (a jar for transporting wine). Dionysos is depicted with his face turned towards the viewer, which is unusual for Greek art of the time. In fact, Dionysos and Kalliope—a muse playing a wind instrument near Dionysos—are the only 2 human figures with frontal faces on the François Vase. More deities follow Dionysos on foot and in chariots, and the parade wraps around the vase.

The registers on Side A (scholars refer to one side of the vessel as ‘Side A’ and the other as ‘Side B’ in order to easily differentiate between the two) of the François Vase depict a series of myths related to the hero Achilles and his father Peleus. The uppermost register shows Peleus hunting the Calydonian boar. The King of Calydon called upon the best hunters in the world to defeat the boar, whose strength is emphasized by the dead human and dog that lie beneath it. While many people aim spears, stones, and bows at the boar, Peleus and his companion attack it head on, ultimately defeating it.

The next register on Side A shows a chariot race organized by Achilles in honor of his closest friend who was killed in the Trojan War. This story is also told in Homer’s Iliad. A series of chariots strain to the finish line as Achilles stands beside the prizes he will award to the winner. The main register, showing the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, appears below the chariot race on Side A. It has a clear relationship to Achilles, as the marriage results in his birth.

The register beneath shows another episode from the Trojan War, in which Achilles killed the youngest son of the Trojan King while the boy was getting water outside the city walls. The fountain house at left sets the scene. At right, a messenger tells the King about the incident.

The end of Achilles’s life is shown on the handles of the François Vase. On each handle, beneath a goddess grasping a wild animal in each fist, we see the warrior Ajax carrying Achilles’ lifeless corpse. The tragedy of the hero’s death is dramatized: his body sags and his limp hair hangs down to the ground.

Side B of the François Vase has scenes that are not related to Achilles, but instead show an assortment of myths involving the Athenian hero Theseus and the gods. The top register shows Theseus playing a lyre as he leads 14 boys and girls in a dance. This may represent the the rescue, by Theseus, of Athenian children from the Minotaur, a monster who would have eaten them. Another pair of signatures by Kleitias and Ergotimos are partially preserved above a boat that seems to have carried the group to shore.

Beneath the dance scene is a depiction of a battle between Greek men (including Theseus) and unruly centaurs at a wedding. Having drunk too much wine, the centaur guests began to attack women. The clashes between the groups are depicted as brutal and violent.

Finally, underneath the central register with Peleus and Thetis’s wedding at the bottom of Side B, there is an image of Hephaistos (god of smiths/craftsmen) returning to Mount Olympus (home of the Greek gods). According to Homer, Hephaistos was born with a bad foot, which Kleitias shows by painting the god’s feet pointing in opposite directions. Hephaistos was mistreated by his fellow gods and refused to return to Mount Olympus until Dionysos persuaded him by over-serving him wine. Once drunk, Hephaistos agreed to go home, and was carried back on a donkey. Here, the relatively positive effects of drinking are shown, in contrast with the negative effects experienced by centaurs at the wedding depicted above.

To the left of Hephaistos and Dionysos, the painter Kleitias represents the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus including Hera. Hephaistos was angered by the cruelty of his mother Hera, and sent her a beautifully crafted chair. When she sat in it, the chair entrapped her. Here we see Hera awaiting her son’s return so that he can release her.

In addition to these narrative scenes, another register at the bottom of the vase shows animals fighting. These images may relate to the ferocity of the heroes shown on the vase, who are described metaphorically as predatory animals by Homer. A comic scene of pygmies (a tribe of small people in Greek mythology) battling cranes decorates the foot of the vase, providing a light counterpoint to the rest of the imagery. The paint on the foot is reddish in color instead of black because the vase was misfired in the kiln, as sometimes happened in ancient Greek ceramic production.

Function and meaning

How was the François Vase used, and by whom? Kraters were used for mixing wine with water at a symposium (a drinking party for upper class men). Since ancient Greeks only drank wine diluted with water, kraters were crucial to the symposium, and were set up in the middle of the room where partygoers drank. The interior of the François Vase has scratches which may have been made by a utensil mixing the wine, but it is unclear whether the vase was used at symposia in Greece, in Etruria (Italy), or in both places. [2] It may have been used at lavish parties in Athens, or in a funerary banquet honoring the deceased in Etruria before it was buried as a grave offering.

Wealthy, educated individuals attending banquets in either place would have recognized the scenes shown on the vase, and might have used them as conversation starters. Other vessels used at symposia in the Archaic period were also commonly painted with mythological scenes and could have served a similar purpose, but the sheer number of scenes on the François Vase may have made it particularly intriguing to the banqueters who used it. They may have even understood the images to be relevant to their own lives. While the pictures had different meanings for different viewers, the scenes of drinking on the François Vase mirror the circumstances in which it was actually used. Moreover, many of the scenes on the vessel represent ideal aristocratic activities that the drinkers likely participated in, including noble marriage, successful hunts, and military combat.

Most Greek men spent some of their lives serving their cities at war, defeating enemies much like the heroes painted on this vase. Like Peleus, Greek men were expected to marry and raise their children to be productive citizens. It seems that Kleitias and Ergotimos purposefully designed the decoration to appeal to the prosperous owners of the vase, who could recognize and relate to the stories it told. [3]

Postscript

On September 9, 1900 a museum guard, in a fit of rage, threw a chair at the case containing the François Vase, shattering it into 638 pieces. The museum director, Luigi Milani asked Pietro Zei to undertake the conservation of the François Vase. Conservation took two years. [4]

Footnotes:

[1] Jasper Gaunt, Ergotimos Epoiesen: The Potter’s Contribution to the François Vase,” in The François Vase: New Perspectives, ed. H. Alan Shapiro, Mario Iozzo, and Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter (Zurich: Akanthus, 2013), p. 81

[2] Mario Iozzo, “The François Vase: Notes on Technical Aspects and Functions,” in The François Vase: New Perspectives, ed. H. Alan Shapiro, Mario Iozzo, and Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter, (Zurich: Akanthus, 2013), p. 61

[3] Cornelia Isler-Kerenyi, “Der Francois-Krater zwischen Athen und Chiusi,” in Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, ed. John H. Oakley, William D. E. Coulson, and Olga Palagia, (Oxford: Oxbow, 1997), p. 523–539

[4] “9/9/1900: il vaso François e il “sacrilego custode,” blog post, National Archaeological Museum of Florence, September 9, 2013 <https://museoarcheologiconazionaledifirenze.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/991900-il-vaso-francois-e-il-sacrilego-custode/>

Cite this page as: Dr. Monica Bulger, “The François Vase: story book of Greek mythology,” in Smarthistory, August 24, 2020, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/francois-vase/.

Achilles and Ajax, heroes of the Trojan War, break from battle to play a friendly game that hints at a tragic future.

Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax and Achilles playing a game, c. 540-530 B.C.E., Archaic Period, 61.1 cm high, found in Vulci (Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Vatican)

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax and Achilles playing a game,” in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/exekias-attic-black-figure-amphora-with-ajax-and-achilles-playing-a-game/.

The gods Apollo and Artemis exact revenge for their mother, in an early attempt at showing depth in ancient Greek art.

Gods carry away the dead on a pot looted from a tomb, trafficked out of Italy, bought by the Met, and finally returned.

Euphronios, Sarpedon Krater, (signed by Euxitheos as potter and Euphronios as painter), c. 515 B.C.E., red-figure terracotta, 55.1 cm diameter (National Museum Cerite, Cerveteri, Italy)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art returns a pot to Italy

One of the most notorious repatriations is that of a 6th century B.C.E. ancient Greek pot, commonly referred to as the Sarpedon Krater or Euphronios vase. This pot was looted from an Etruscan tomb not far from Rome in 1971 and a year later illegally bought by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (MMA). The Italian government eventually requested the return of the pot, having collected evidence for its theft and illicit sale. In 2008, seeking to avoid a long and potentially damaging court battle, the MMA struck an agreement with the Italian government for its return. After it was exhibited at the National Etruscan Museum, the Villa Giulia, in Rome, in 2014 the vase was moved to The National Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri, nearby the Etruscan tomb from which it had been stolen 43 years before. Italy had achieved the impossible: forced the return of a stolen piece of its history from a wealthy and influential universal museum.

In the story of the repatriation of the Euphronios vase—this unequivocal win for the protection of heritage and redress of colonialist collection strategies—we have the opportunity to reflect on the various meanings and phenomena of repatriation: what gets lost, what gets gained, and how meanings shift.

With the Euphronios repatriation, the MMA gained an end to legal entanglements and perhaps some moral high ground for negotiating the return. Needless to say, however, it lost its very expensive and beautiful pot. But, what else was lost? Perhaps a bit of authority to write a certain type of history.

Museums are, among other things, in the business of codifying the history of art. Within institutions like the British Museum, the Vatican, and the MMA, the arrangements of their spectacular treasures have written the history of art for nearly three centuries. In this history, individual works are markers on a timeline: a painting, sculpture, or ancient pot. And this history has nearly always been presented as tidy, inevitable, and linear, with white Western men nearly always at the forefront of invention and innovation, as conquerors, kings, popes, explorers, pioneers, collectors, patrons, painters, and sculptors. In short, a white male imperialist history. Therefore, the great pieces of art in universal museums are not only valued for their beauty or cultural worth but also for their role in the establishment of a particular imperialist art historical knowledge. With the return of the Euphronios vase, the MMA has lost, in some measure, its authority to do this.

As for Italy, what is gained by the return of the Euphronios vase is substantial. With the vase brought back to the region in Italy where it was buried in a tomb, The National Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri gains a star object, with which it can highlight first rate Greek vase painting and construct a more nuanced and contextual meaning of ancient Etruscan burial and culture in the region. And, of course, Italy has won a notorious repatriation fight against a formidable opponent, which gives hope to others with similar repatriation claims.

The social life of the Euphronios vase

And what about the vase itself? Although it sounds odd, thinking about the experience of the Euphronios vase reveals a lot. Anthropologists and art historians like to think about the social life of things, or the biography of objects. This approach ascribes the meaning of an object not through its maker or owner but rather by a study of its form, use, and trajectory—its life history. So, how has the form, use, and long travels of the Euphronios vase made its meaning?

The Euphronios vase began its life at about 515 B.C.E., born in the Keramikos, or potters’ quarter, just outside the walls of ancient Athens, made from Attic clay. The pot itself was formed by Euxitheos and painted by Euphronios, an innovative painter who would, in the modern era, come to be regarded as one of the most talented Greek pot painters. The Euphronios vase was not cheap; scholars surmise it would have cost approximately a week’s wages in the 6th century B.C.E. The vase, in shape, is called a krater—a large wine serving bowl—intended to be the focal point and inspiration of discussion, at an all-male drinking party called a symposium.

The pot has painted scenes on two sides, the most remarkable of which illustrates a moment from Homer’s Iliad, recounting an episode in the Trojan War between the Achaeans (Greeks) against the city of Troy (which was also largely Greek). On the vase we see a slain warrior on the Trojan side, Sarpedon carried off the battlefield by the gods of sleep and night, to be returned to his homeland for proper burial. Sarpedon was killed by Patroclus, who is then killed by Hector (prince of Troy), an event which leads to his death at the hands of the famous warrior Achilles (but not before Hector prophesizes Achilles’s death). An Athenian would have known the dark prophecy of the death of Sarpedon, and no doubt such an image would have inspired drinkers to reflect on a range of topics, such as the inevitability of death, the imperfect power of the gods, the fate of great warriors, and the primacy of burial rituals. The very material of the pot, the story it tells in its decoration, and the symposium for which it was made all reflect a deeply Hellenic identity. Despite this, the Euphronios vase eventually left its homeland forever.

Indeed, it is unclear how long the pot remained in Greece but at some point, it traveled across the central Mediterranean Sea to Etruria (the land of the Etruscans, the central area of Italy, around Rome). Thousands of Athenian pots were sold to the Etruscans from the 8th to the 3rd century B.C.E. and thousands were placed in Etruscan tombs so we can safely assume that they were desired and valued by their buyers—although not much is known about how they were used. We assume that Etruscans used them in the ways the Greeks used them, wine cups for drinking, hydria for serving water, and kraters (like the Euphronios vase) to mix wine and water together, likely on a special occasion, given their value. However, there is evidence from painted tombs that Etruscan women participated in feasts in which Greek pots were used, which is different from Greek practice. How deeply the Etruscans understood the Greek identity is hard to know. How long the Euphronios vase was used by its Etruscan owner(s) is also hard to say.

The tomb in Cerveteri, in the Greppe Sant’Angelo necropolis, where the Euphronios vase was entombed, was huge, with many chambers, and used from the late 4^th to 3^rd century B.C.E. Because the tomb was looted and we have no associated finds to date nor the exact part of the tomb in which the pot was found, we cannot date its burial any better than the date of the tomb itself. But, this alone tells us that the Euphronios vase was used for at least a century before it was buried; sadly, we don’t know if this use was mostly by Greeks or Etruscans because we don’t know when it arrived in Italy. However, a precise repair, with metal rivets, was made sometime in antiquity, which can be seen on the less famous side of the vase, which shows young men readying for battle. This reveals to us some vigorous use and special care.

The looting of the tomb

In December of 1971, the tomb in Greppe Sant’Angelo was looted and the Euphronios vase was stolen. If the vase was again broken during its theft is not known but we do know that when it was illegally exported to Switzerland it was extensively repaired. It was then sold to the MMA, for $1 million, the greatest price the museum had ever paid for a work of art. The pot was conserved again by the MMA upon its arrival in New York (to which it travelled in its own first-class seat on a TWA flight from Zurich) and treated to a bespoke glass case, designed by staff from Tiffany’s, at its unveiling. The pot’s initial display at the MMA was a great media event. It was described as the finest Greek pot to survive from antiquity; the director of the museum at the time called it an ancient Leonardo da Vinci. The vase was immediately featured in books about ancient Greek art and general survey texts, picked out as a singular achievement in the narrative of Western art history. With the Euphronios vase’s installation in the Greek and Roman galleries of the MMA its previous life as an object of Etruscan value was erased. The Euphronios vase became one of the many focal points of the museum’s collection, arguing for a narrative that places the singular achievement of ancient Greek art at the foundation of Western visual heritage, where it became the wellspring of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and an expression of Western imperialist inevitability and dominance.

In its New York home, the Euphronios vase was enjoyed by increasing numbers of visitors from the 1970s on to the first decade of the 21st century; the MMA had over 4.5 million visitors in 2007, the last year of its stay. In addition to these public viewers, the Euphronios vase hosted scores of academic and celebrity visitors, not to mention regular after-hours attention from conservators, lighting technicians, photographers, security consultants, exhibition designers, and curators, seeking to extract from it maximum historical and aesthetic content. The Euphronios vase lived in the MMA as a subject of near constant focus, awe, and inspiration.

The attention which the Euphronios vase enjoyed in its temporary New York residence can hardly compare with the emotional hero’s welcome it received at its homecoming to Rome, in 2008. Its first unveiling occurred at the Presidential Palazzo del Quirinale, in a special exhibition together with other repatriated objects entitled Nostoi, which means “those who return home,” also the title of a lost ancient Greek epic poem, about the return of the Greek heroes after the sack of Troy.

The Nostoi exhibit was widely covered by the international press, its reviews full of pathos and emotional satisfaction, also seen as an example of Italian political savvy on the part of the increasingly unstable government of president Romano Prodi. At the Palazzo del Quirinale, the Euphronios vase wasn’t standing in for the superiority of Greek art or the foundations of Western heritage in an imperialist narrative; it spoke instead of the return of a precious object to its homeland after a long struggle far away, a triumphant warrior of a watershed battle in the growing cause for cultural heritage repatriation. Remember the vase was made in Greece, though it was found buried in an Etruscan tomb in central Italy.

The next move for the Euphronios vase was to the National Etruscan Museum at Rome in the Villa Giulia, where it was exhibited, for the first time, as a treasured piece of Etruscan culture. Its meaning now shifted yet again, to one centered around Etruscan appropriation of Greek sympotic practice, trade with the wider Mediterranean world, and burial customs. Visitors to the Villa Guilia came to learn about the pre-Roman history of Italy, to understand one of the earliest civilizations of the Italic peninsula (the Etruscans), a part of which was the trade in beautiful Greek vases. The Euphronios vase now told a story anchored in its own ancient Italic experience, not about the foundations of Western art and imperialism in a universal museum, not the catharsis of a long sought and hard-won repatriation, but the story of its past owners and users.

Returning home

And, finally, in 2014, the Euphronios vase was installed in a museum very close to where it had been deposited in antiquity, The National Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri, a 15-minute drive from the Greppe Sant’Angelo necropolis (in what was once Etruria, the home of the Etruscans). It now sits among other grave goods and assemblages found in local Etruscan tombs, excavated by archaeologists who work to reveal and understand Etruscan culture. The Euphronios vase is now truly home, back in the region where in antiquity it had been cherished as an elite Greek import, regarded with wonder in lively social ceremony, and chosen to accompany its owner into the afterlife and eternity.

The Cerveteri museum is a quiet place, especially on the second floor where the Euphronios vase is exhibited, and it is easily missed by less intrepid museum visitors. And those visitors are a tiny fraction of those the pot has been accustomed to seeing: the Cerveteri museum welcomed some 12,500 visitors, in 2018. But, for those who climb the steps to find the Euphronios vase in the cool solitude of its new museum home, they will find not only a remarkable ancient object but a nearly impossible challenge: to believe that this is the pot which has traveled so far away and returned, suffered destruction and careful restoration twice, been the subject of so much violence, desire, admiration, and contention, whose meaning has been remade so many times: Attic Greek, Etruscan, Greek again but in the service of a Western imperialist narrative, glorious booty returned to its Italian homeland, a poster child for repatriation battles, then Etruscan again, in a deeply local and contextual way. This quiet wonder can be contrasted with the continued high celebrity which the Euphronios vase enjoys on the global digital sphere. Indeed, because of its complex biography, it is among the most famous pots in the world.

Cite this page as: Dr. Erin Thompson, Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Senta German, “Euphronios, Sarpedon Krater,” in Smarthistory, July 13, 2017, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/euphronios-krater/.