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Boeotian Haloa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

Reading University has recently acquired two fresh examples of the group of small vases with outline drawing first discussed by Wide, who tentatively connected them with Mykalessos. One is a kylix, formerly in the possession of Mr. John Fothergill and most generously presented by him to the University, showing Herakles with his club (Figs, 1 and 2b). The second is a pyxis, damaged somewhat in an air raid of 1945, with a subject on the lid that is less easy to recognise (Figs. 2a and 3). Reading has also a third vase, belonging to this series but standing rather apart from the rest. It is a kylix of the same kind as the first, but decorated inside with a rosebud between sprays (Fig. 4). These three vases with Wide's original five and one other kylix published in the Russian Compte Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique 1901 (1903) p. 131 Fig. 229 (reproduced here in Fig. 5) bring the total of vases of this class up to nine. Nothing is known of the provenance of any of the three vases in Reading and the kylix in Russia is published in a list of chance finds and acquisitions in the government of Cherson with no information as to how it was acquired.

Wide associated his group with the cult of Demeter of Mykalessos whose temple, according to Pausanias, was shut every night and opened again by Herakles.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1949

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References

1 AM XXVI pp. 143 f.

2 On loan to the University from Reading Museum. I am indebted to Mr. W. A. Smallcombe, curator of Reading Museum, for permission to publish this vase.

3 IX 19.5.

4 AM XXVI p. 146 fig.

5 Ibid. p. 145 fig.; British Museum Cat. Vases III pl. XXI E814Google Scholar; Pfuhl MuZ 611.

6 AM XXVI pl. VIII; Collignon and Couve pl. XXXIX 1120.

7 AM XXVI p. 144 fig.; Pfuhl MuZ 612.

8 AM XXVI p. 147 fig.

9 IX 19.5 and 27.8.

10 It was about a cubit high while the Demeter was fifteen feet. VIII 31.3.

11 Odyssey XI 128Google Scholar.

12 Farnell, Cults III pp. 148 f.Google Scholar; Harrison, J.Prolegomena pp. 529, 543Google Scholar; Jebb-Pearson, Fragments of Sophocles III p. 120Google Scholar.

13 AM XXVI p. 147 fig.

14 Frag. 959, Jebb-Pearson III p. 120.

15 Bacchae 100, 137.

16 It must be admitted that the horns look rather more like those of a goat than a bull. Possibly our painter was not interested in distinguishing between different kinds of horns. There is nothing else in the picture to suggest that the young man is a youthful Pan, nor are the horns in the least like those given to Pan by the contemporary Boeotian pot painter who painted the Kabeiric skyphoi, Wolters and Bruns Das Kabirenheiligum bei Theben pl. 57.2, 3, 4.

17 VI (VII) 3.

18 Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild I p. 5Google Scholar.

19 E.g. BSA XLI pl. 7, 6a; Wolters-Bruns Das Kabiren-heiligtum bei Theben pl. 31.2 and 52.12.

20 For Egyptian instances of a bowl or basket of vegetable offerings beside a corn heap and associated with winnowing implements see JHS XXIV p. 242Google Scholar fig. 1 and p. 244 notes 7 and 8. Another Egyptian harvest scene figured ibid. p. 245 shows a scribe perched on top of the corn heap.

21 With the possible exception of the kylix in Russia which I know only from the illustration reproduced here, fig. 5.

22 Origin of Chalcidian Ware pp. 90 f.

23 MuZ p. 714.

24 Beazley, ARV p. 200–1Google Scholar nos. 1 (?), 9, 10, 29.

25 Ath. Mitt. 1889, p. 43Google Scholar.

26 Beazley, JHS XLIX p. 51Google Scholar.

27 Such as Pfuhl MuZ fig. 504

28 E.g. Ure Aryballoi and Figurines from Rhitsona pl. XX gr. 138 nos. 1–6 (for the inventory of gr. 138see Sixth p.100f.) still later (towards 420 B.C.) are Sixth and Fifth pl. XXIV gr. 114a nos. 1–5.

29 Necrocorinthia p. 333 no. 1513 fig. 178; CV Oxford ii P. 65 no. 32 pl. II 32 and III 12.

30 Ure, P. N.Black Glaze Pottery pl. XI gr. 57 nos. 1 and 2, p. 43Google Scholar.

31 See the section given by Payne ibid. fig. 178.

32 Albizzati, Vasi del Vaticano 229 pll. 19, 20Google Scholar.

33 AM XXVI p. 156.

34 Ure Sixth and Fifth pl. XXV 114b nos. 7 and 8; pp. 5, 81, 91.

35 JHS XLVI p. 57 no. 5Google Scholar.

36 Ibid. p. 56 fig. 1.

37 Ibid. fig. 2.

38 AA 1933 p. 28 fig. 28.

39 Ibid. fig. 30.

40 BSA XLI pl. 9.

41 JHS XLVI pl. II 8 and pl. III 12.

42 For their association at Megalopolis cf. Pausanias VIII 31.3

43 Formerly in the De Pass collection, now in the Cornwall County Museum, Truro. I have to thank the Curator of the Museum, Mr. George Penrose, for permission to publish this vase.

44 I am indebted to Sir John Beazley for this attribution.

45 CV San Francisco p. 23.

46 CV San Francisco p. 25.

47 IX 19.5.

48 Pfuhl, MuZ p. 715Google Scholar.

49 For the Haloa at Athens see Farnell, Cults III p. 45fGoogle Scholar.

50 Il. p. 772, 25, quoted Farnell ibid. p. 316.

51 For the conflicting views of Frazer and Ulrichs see Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece V p. 71Google Scholar.

52 And so does the dove behind her throne on the Athens plate, AM XXVI, pl. VIII.

53 On the child Dionysos, spirit of vegetation and of the crops, see Nilsson, Martin P.The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion pp. 492 ffGoogle Scholar.

54 Cf. Persson, The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times p. 152Google Scholar.