Artwork Page for Black-Figure Loutrophoros-Amphora (Ritual Water Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners

Details / Information for Black-Figure Loutrophoros-Amphora (Ritual Water Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners

Black-Figure Loutrophoros-Amphora (Ritual Water Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners

c. 500 BCE

Greek, Attic

Medium
ceramic
Measurements
Overall: 43.5 cm (17 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
The Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1927.145
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

Mourning figures wrap all the way around this vessel, even beneath the handles.

Description

The loutrophoros, a tall-necked water vessel, served two main purposes in ancient Athens. In life, it carried sacred spring water for ceremonial pre-marriage baths. After death, it marked the tomb of an unmarried person, as if to account for that not experienced in life. Often, as here, it has no bottom, permitting offerings to flow through to the grave. Both the precise shape of this vase—a two-handled loutrophoros-amphora rather than a three-handled loutrophoros-hydria—and its depiction of the deceased suggest the commemoration of a departed man (rather than a woman). The iconography is entirely funerary, with multiple mourning figures shown: four women on the neck; six women surrounding the corpse on its bier; and three men making farewell gestures. The inscriptions near some of the mourning women do not spell out real words but may represent their sorrowful cries.
Orange ceramic loutrophoros a vessel with a round body and flaring cylindrical neck as tall as the base, handles curving down either side. On the body, women with light skin tone in black robes surround a corpse on a bier, colored in solid black. Around the neck, more such women circle with simple line and geometric patterns dividing the scenes and lining the vessels upper and lower edges.

Black-Figure Loutrophoros-Amphora (Ritual Water Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners

c. 500 BCE

Greek, Attic

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