The Pankration was an athletic contest that combined boxing, wrestling, and kicking. In the surviving representations, it is not always easy to distinguish the pankration from boxing or wrestling matches. Such is the case here where the competition takes place under the eyes of a trainer and an onlooker.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta skyphos (deep drinking cup)
Artist:Attributed to the Theseus Painter
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 500 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm) diameter 8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1906
Object Number:06.1021.49
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 75, fig. 45, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 85, fig. 53, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 85, fig. 53, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Alexander, Christine. 1933[1925]. Greek Athletics. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 94, 96, 100, fig. 122, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. pp. 94, 96, 100, fig. 122, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. p. 75, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1956. Attic Black-figure Vase-painters. p. 703, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cole, Nancy. 1968. Greek Athletic Games. no. 12, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Beck, Frederick A. G. 1975. Album of Greek Education: The Greeks at School and at Play. p. 36, fig. 210, Sydney: Cheiron Press.
Scheibler, Ingeborg. 2000. "Attische Skyphoi für attische Feste." Antike Kunst, 43: p. 34 n. 152.
Herrmann, John and Christine Kondoleon. 2004. Games for the Gods: The Greek Athlete and the Olympic Spirit. no. 63, pp. 99, 178, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
van Alfen, Peter. 2004. A Simple Souvenir: Coins and Medals of the Olympic Games. pp. 5–6, fig. 6, New York: American Numismatic Society.
Chiarini, Sara. 2018. The So-called Nonsense Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Vases : Between Paideia and Paidiá. pp. 414–15, Leiden/ Boston: Brill.
Highlights from The Met collection illustrate the many athletic games held in ancient Greece, featuring celebrity athletes, grand prizes, and the mythical origins of the first Olympics.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
