Oversize kraters were used as tomb markers and receptacles for ritual offerings. This one is decorated with a well-known and appropriate subject: the funeral of an Athenian aristocrat. The main scene shows a prothesis—the laying out of the deceased surrounded by mourners, who lift their arms to their heads. In this work, the deceased is shown with a long braid or pigtail issuing from his head; the same detail appears on the warriors standing to the right, suggesting that it is either his braided hair or the crest of his helmet. Also noteworthy is the little creature that seems to be attending to the warrior's head. Below the dead man sits a row of female mourners, who can be identified by the thin, lateral triangles projecting from their chests. Of the two subordinate zones, the upper one shows chariots drawn by two horses; the lower one shows a single horse per chariot. Foot soldiers are at a minimum. Of special interest is the charioteer positioned under the bier scene, who is accompanied by a seated child, perhaps the deceased’s son. This krater, like others of its type, was intentionally built with a hole pierced in the bottom of the body so that libations—liquid offerings—could flow directly through the earth and reach the deceased.
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Title:Terracotta krater
Artist:Attributed to the Trachones Workshop
Period:Late Geometric II
Date:ca. 725 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta
Dimensions:H. 51 3/8 in. (130.5 cm) diameter of mouth 32 1/2 in. (82.5 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1914
Accession Number:14.130.15
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Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 43, fig. 22, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. Ancient Furniture: A History of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Furniture. p. 66, n. 1, fig. 171, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 48, 51, fig. 28, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 48, 51, fig. 28, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Villard, François. 1949. "Un nouveau cratère du Dipylon au Musée du Louvre." Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à Charles Picard à l'occasion de son 65e anniversaire, Vol. 2. n. 1071, Paris: Presses universitaires de France.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 24, 174, pl. 14a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Villard, François. 1957. "Une amphore géométrique attique au Musée du Louvre." Monuments et Mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot, 49: p. 26.
Marwitz, Herbert. 1959. "Kreis und Figur in der attisch-geometrischen Vasenmalerei." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 74: p. 66.
Marwitz, Herbert. 1961. "Das Bahrtuch. Homerischer Totenbrauch auf geometrischen Vasen." Antike und Abendland, 10: p. 10, no. III.2, 12.
Friis-Johansen, Knud. 1961. Ajas und Hektor. Ein vorhomerisches Heldenlied?. pp. 32–3, Køobenhavn: Munksgaard.
Brunnsåker, Sture. 1961. Opuscula Romana, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Rom: pp. 204 n. 5, 230.
Smithson, Evelyn Lord. 1962. "Reviewed Work: Attic Geometric Workshops by Jean M. Davison." American Journal of Archaeology, 66(4): p. 424.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1966. The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans. pp. 42, 62, fig. 330, London: Phaidon Press.
Andronikos, Manolis. 1968. Totenkult. pp. 45 n. 288d, 49 n. 15, pl. 9, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Fittschen, Klaus. 1969. Untersuchungen zum Beginn der Sagendarstellung bei den Griechen. pp. 68–9, Berlin: Hassling.
Ahlberg-Cornell, Gudrun. 1971. Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Art, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology. fig. 22, Göteborg: Paul Aströms Förlag.
Carter, John. 1972. "The Beginnings of Narrative Art in the Greek Geometric Period." Annual of the British School at Athens, 67: pp. 52 n. 164, 53.
King, C. 1977. Archaeological News, 6(2). pp. 33–6, figs. 7-10.
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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.
