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A Greek Vase from Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

John Boardman
John Boardman
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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Extract

Apart from the important Greek trading-town at Naukratis and the shorter-lived settlement at Tell Defenneh (Daphnai) there is little to show in Egypt for the early years of renewed relations between Greece and the kingdom of the Nile valley. Yet already in the eighth century B.C. a few Egyptian objects were reaching Greek lands; in the seventh Egyptians were employing Ionian Greek mercenaries and apparently themselves influencing Greece's first steps in monumental sculpture. Only slight finds of Greek pottery earlier than 500 B.C. have been made on Egyptian sites other than the two named above, notably at Memphis and at Egyptian Thebes, comprising the sanctuaries of Luxor and Karnak as well as the Theban Necropolis. The last-named complex was well known to the Greeks as Thebes of the Hundred Gates, mentioned in the Iliad (ix. 381–4). It is thence that the vase which forms the subject of this paper is said to come. The few fragments which are all that is preserved from it are in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1924. 264: Plate I), the gift of Professor Sayce, having been bought by him in Luxor and said to have been found in Karnak. They have already been published by Miss E. R. Price in CVA Oxford ii. IId pl. 10 (401), 24, and associated with the Clazomenian class of Ionian black-figured vases. They seem to merit further attention because the scene figured on one side of the vase has not hitherto been identified, and because its identification may in turn throw a little light on the Greeks who lived in the heart of the Egyptian kingdom. Stylistically the vase can be dated to the decade 550–540 B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 78 , November 1958 , pp. 4 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1958

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References

1 Cf. Clairmont, C., Berytus xi (1955), 138 f.Google Scholar; our vase is his A.81, p. 107 (its number misquoted). Many pieces which he cites probably reached Egypt in comparatively recent times.

2 In the Museum register is the note that a search was made later for more fragments, but without suecess. The sherds were packed in Cairo and some were either lost or stolen by the packers. It remains possible then that more of this vase exists outside Egypt. With the fragments, and with the same history, came a fragment from the rim of an Attic column-crater with linked buds and ivy frieze (Oxford, 1924. 265) which may be added to Clair mont's list (see last note).

3 Cf. Cook, R. M., BSA xlvii (1952), 139 n. 69.Google Scholar

4 Figs. 1 and 2 were prepared by Mrs. M. E. Cox.

5 Full discussion and references in Deubner, L., Attische Feste, 102 ff.Google Scholar, and Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion,2 i. 572, 582 f.Google Scholar The vases are all figured in JdI xxvii (1912), Beil. 1, and see Deubner, pl. 11.1; 14.2; Nilsson, pl. 36.1; and CVA Bologna ii. pl. 342.

6 Buschor, E., Griechische Vasen, 127Google Scholar, fig. 144; Pfuhl, E., MuZ iii. fig. 231Google Scholar; Lane, E. A., Greek Pottery, pl. 41aGoogle Scholar; Beazley, J. D., ABV 146, No. 21.Google Scholar

7 JdI xxvii (1912), 76 f., figs. 1, 2.

8 On satyr costume see Webster, T. B. L., ‘Greek Comic Costume’ in Bulletin of the John Rylands Libray 36 (1954), 579 ff.Google Scholar and Greek Theatre Production, 28 ff. The Oxford vase is not discussed. For the later satyr-players see F. Brommer, Satyrspiele, figs. 1–6; in Satyroi 33 the same writer comments on the loincloth worn by our satyr (and cf. Buschor, E., Satyrtänze 64).Google Scholar On a late sixth-century black-figured oenochoe in a private collection in London a fully clothed satyr dances towards Dionysos who is accompanied by a ‘real’ satyr and maenads; this must be an unusual and early allusion to a dramatic performance. I will publish this vase shortly.

9 Florence 3897: Deubner, op. cit., pl. 22; Nilsson, op. cit., pl. 35.2–3; photographs appear in Webster, op. cit., pl. 2. The decoration is unusual—overlap on a lip-cup. Note too the lack of handle palmettes and the presence of a fillet at the top of the stem; Cf. Beazley, , JHS lii (1932), 168.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Herter, H. in RE s.v. ‘Phallos’ 1674 f.Google Scholar The extremities are like the prows of boats, and the eyes on them are more suitable decoration for boats though they do appear on phalloi. Compare especially the wooden boat models from Samos, , AM Ixviii (1953), Beil.35.Google Scholar

11 Deubner, 102; Nilsson, , Griechische Feste 268Google Scholar, texts ibid., n. 4, and Geschichte 2, i. 591 f. Cassola's, F. account of the Smyrna trireme, in La Ionia nel Mondo Miceneo 217Google Scholar, will need revision.

12 Deubner, 103 f.; Nilsson, , Geschichte 2, i. 583.Google Scholar

13 And cf. Diod. i. 22.

14 Ath. v. 201e; cf. vi. 253c.

15 Hdt. ii. 42.2; cf. Plut. de Is. 13, and, on the Pamylia festival, ibid. 12.36; Zucker, F. in Aus Antike und Orient (Schubart, Festschrift W.), 163Google Scholar; Goodenough, E. R. in Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, vi. 71–80Google Scholar, gives a good summary of Egyptian phallic processions and representations.

16 Described in Erman, A., Die Religion der Ägypter (1934); 198–200Google Scholar, cf. 329, fig. 140.

17 Gayet, A., Le Temple de Louxor (Mémoires de la Mission, xv), pl. 42Google Scholar (cf. pl. 41, 43). And see W. Wolf, Das schöne Fest von Opet. There are many other illustrations from various periods of this Theban festival and the carriage of boats: Legrain, G., Les Temples de Karnak, 201Google Scholar, fig. 124; 203, fig. 126; 221 f., figs. 131–2; Capart, J. and Werbrouck, M., Thèbes, 74Google Scholar, fig. 47; 89, fig. 53; Seele, K. C., The Co-regency of Ramses II with Seti I, 69Google Scholar, fig. 22. Most of the evidence and illustration are of New Kingdom date, but the ritual and processions certainly survived although the flourishing period of Thebes was only a memory by Homer's day (cf. Lorimer, H. L., Homer and the Monuments, 97).Google Scholar Mr. J. R. Harris kindly gave me some references to the Egyptian scenes.

18 Daphnai, see Cook, R. M., CVA British Museum viii. 32.Google Scholar I discuss the Chian factory in Naukratis, in BSA li (1956), 55–62.Google Scholar For the Petrie Painter see Cook, R. M., BSA xlvii (1952), 128–30.Google Scholar

19 CVA British Museum viii. 31, 34, 37.

20 Boardman, , BSA li (1956), 60.Google Scholar

21 Beazley, J. D. and Ashmole, B., Greek Sculpture and Painting, 24.Google Scholar Another interesting parallel from Italy might be the Etruscan bucchero ‘Anubis vase’ in Palermo (Tusa, V., Arch. Class. viii (1956), 147–52Google Scholar, pl. 35–40) were it not that the ‘Anubis’ looks exactly like an ordinary Minotaur; and his companion then perhaps Daedalus.

22 The Arkesilas vase: Pfuhl, MuZ iii. fig 193; Buschor, , Griechische Vasen, 75Google Scholar, fig. 85, and references in Lane, E. A., BSA xxxiv (1933–1934), 140 f.Google Scholar, 161 f., Shefton, B. B., BSA xlix (1954), 301 (No. 16)Google Scholar, 308 f. Puchstein, O. in AZ xxxviii (1880), 185 f.Google Scholar refers to a number of Egyptian parallels, but none is as striking as the painting from the tomb of Neferronpet (Thebes, No. 178; Wreszinski, W., Atlas zur altägyptischen Kulturgeschichte, 74a, 75aGoogle Scholar; part in Schäfer, H. an Andrae, W., Die Kunst des alten Orients 3, 368Google Scholar below). Most of the Egyptian scenes quoted are, of necessity, from Theban tombs of the New Kingdom. But Egyptian artistic conventions remain unchanged into the Saite period, and the preserved tomb paintings the Saite period, and the preserved tomb paintings give a fair idea of the scenes which must have decorated public and private buildings.

23 E.g. Pfuhl, MuZ iii. figs. 293, 294, Cf. 287, 288.

24 E.g. the Amasis Painter's amphora, Pfuhl, MuZ iii fig. 222 Buschor, , Griechische Vasen, 122Google Scholar, fig. 139; ABV 151, No. 22.

25 Pfuhl, fig. 212; Buschor, 90, fig. 104; Lane, E. A., Greek Pottery, pl. 21a.Google Scholar

26 The appearance of the fabric is not conclusive, but analysis of the clay might prove rewarding.

27 Cook, R. M., BSA xlvii (1952), 123–52Google Scholar; ibid. 149–51 on related groups. Cf. Hemelrijk, J. M., De Caeretaanse Hydriae, 62, 122.Google Scholar D. von Bothmer makes some minor additions to Cook's, lists in AJA lix (1955), 249.Google Scholar There are others in University, College, Dublin, one fragment of a cup or bowl in, Oxford (G.129.9), and BSA xlix (1954), pl. 6.69 from Chios, may be Clazomenian.

28 Cook, 149 f.

29 ibid. 150 f. Villard, F. in MP xliii (1949), 33 ff.Google Scholar distinguished the painters; the dinos in the Villa Giulia by the Painter of Louvre E737 (Villard, 44) is now illustrated in Bartoccini, R., Il Nuovo Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, 90 (fig.).Google Scholar A new example is mentioned by Kallipolitis, V. in MP xlviii (1956), 55 n. 3.Google Scholar

30 Ann. xxiv–xxvi (1946–8), 47 ff., fig. 1, pl. 3–6. Hemelrijk, op. cit. 62, has suggested that two of the dinos painters worked on it. This seems correct, but the two artists have other, more trivial features in common, like the use of reserved leaf ornament and ribbon patterns (Villard, 44, fig. 10; 48, fig. 18; 49 n. 5; cf. Bartoccini, 90), motifs which do not appear on dinoi by the other painters. It may then be that they should be conflated into one whose pedestrian style is represented on the dinoi of the Painter of Louvre E737 and the shoulder of the Riccihydria, and whose grand and rather Etruscan manner appears on Louvre E739 and the body of the Ricci hydria. There are hardly any points for comparison between the two styles but note the similar treatment of himatia in the priest and Hermes on the hydria. Cf. Cook, 151.

31 To the vases discussed by Villard and Cook Rumpf adds (MuZ 57 n. 1) a fragment from Naukratis in Brussels, (CVA iii. pl. 106.4Google Scholar) which might be anything, and an amphora from Delos, (EADélos xvii. pl. 47–18)Google Scholar in a debased North Ionian style.

32 CVA Oxford ii. 89, specifying the floral and the elaborate spotting of the dog a nd locust.

33 P. 139, F. 18.

34 MuZ 57. He does not cite it with the other references, ibid. n. 1, but it must be our vase that he refers to in the text ‘Scherben aus Ägypten mit einer Weinlese’ [sic].

35 Inv. 585–6, Sieveking-Hackl, , Die königliche Vasensammlung zu München, 59 f., pl. 21.Google Scholar

36 Linked, and in the same position on Munich 585 (see last note) which I follow in the reconstruction on fig. 1. Unlinked, and elsewhere on Munich 586 and Würzburg K.131, Langlotz, pl. 16–17.

37 Caeretan berries usually radiate from a single point, not a stem, but cf. MP xliv (1950), 8, fig. 6, a vase in Vienna. Contrast the poor Caeretan vine, ibid., pl. 2–3. On the Ionian ivy pattern see Payne, H., Necrocorinthia, 156.Google Scholar A detail of the Ricci hydria shoulder is also figured by Rumpf, (MuZ, pl. 15.5)Google Scholar; ibid., 67 he points out the similarity of the vine to that on the Oxford vase but he considers the hydria Clazomenian.

38 In the Villa Giulia, see Bartoccini (above, n. 29).

39 Villard, 47, 57; Cook, op. cit., 140 (F.a) and pl. 32. Hemelnjk (op. cit., 62) accepts Villard's attribution of the vase to a Campana dinos painter, and suggests that it was made before the painter emigrated to the West; this would well agree with the argument developed here, but I am not sure of the attribution.

40 Villard, 57 n. 2 says from Luxor, bought at Karnak, but cf. Cook, , and Neugebauer, K. A., Führer, 34 f.Google Scholar: ‘Angebl. Karnak’. It must be admitted that these Egyptian provenances are not as secure as one would wish but my interpretation of the scenes on the Oxford and Berlin vases, if correct, seems to justify confidence.

41 For some other East Greek rams or sheep see Cook, , CVA Brltish Museum viii. 37.Google Scholar

42 Hdt. ii. 42.4–6. Cf. Erman, op. cit. (see n. 16), 43) 152, 335. This was a period in which the Egyptian interest in animal worship and the animal-mutations of their gods was particularly active, cf. Erman, 321–6; Zucker, op. cit. (see n. 15), 162 f.

43 Berytus xi (1955), 138.

44 AJA lix (1955), 236 and pl. 70.3; lx (1956), 383; Akurgal, E., Anatolia i (1956), 9.Google Scholar

45 E.g. Akurgal, E., Bayrakli, pl. 14bGoogle Scholar; JHS lxx (1950), 10.

46 Cf. Richter, G. M. A., Ann. xxiv–xxvi (1946–1948), 81–3.Google Scholar

47 Egyptian objects are found in Etruria from the end of the eighth century on. A Caeretan fragment in Paris is said to be from Naukratis (Devambez, P., MP xli [1946], 59, fig. 18Google Scholar), but the provenance is doubtful (Hemelrijk, 64, 121). Courbin, P. (BCH Ixxvii [1953], 342)Google Scholar cites Etruscan bucchero at Naukratis (Gardner, E. A., Naukratis ii. 50 f.)Google Scholar; this is probably all East Greek, ‘Lesbian’. That our vase could have reached Egypt from Etruria seems to me much less probable.