The Derveni Krater is a

volute A volute is a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals. Four are normally to be found on an I ...

krater A krater or crater ( grc-gre, , ''kratēr'', literally "mixing vessel") was a large two-handled shape of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, krat ...

, the most elaborate of its type, discovered in 1962 in a tomb at Derveni, not far from

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, and displayed at the

Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki ( el, Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Θεσσαλονίκης ) is a museum in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece. It holds and interprets artifacts from the Prehistoric, Archaic, Classical ...

. Weighing 40 kg, it is made of a bronze with a high

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

content of about 15%, which endows it with a superb golden sheen without use of any

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile m ...

at all. It is dated to the 4th century BC, and was probably made in Athens. Large metalwork vessels are extremely rare survivals in

Ancient Greek art Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic d ...

, and the Derveni Krater is the outstanding survival from

Hellenistic art Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the Roman Greece, conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BCE, when the ...

, as the Vix Krater is from the Archaic period.

Discovery

The krater was discovered buried, as a funerary urn for a

Thessalian Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thess ...

aristocrat whose name is engraved on the vase: Astiouneios, son of Anaxagoras, from Larissa. Kraters (mixing bowls) were vessels used for mixing undiluted wine with water and probably various spices as well, the drink then being ladled out to fellow banqueters at ritual or festive celebrations. When excavated, the Derveni krater contained 1968.31 g of burnt bones that belonged to a man aged 35–50 and to a younger woman.

Technique and decoration

The vase is composed of two leaves of metal which were hammered then joined, although the handles and the

s (scrolls) were cast and attached. The main alloy used gives it a golden colour, but at various points the decoration is worked with different metals as overlays or inlays of silver, copper, bronze and other base metals. Such highlights include the silver garlands of vine and ivy around the krater, the silver and copper stripes on the

viper The Viperidae (vipers) are a family of snakes found in most parts of the world, except for Antarctica, Australia, Hawaii, Madagascar, and various other isolated islands. They are venomous and have long (relative to non-vipers), hinged fangs th ...

s at the handles, and the silver ords of the eyes of the volute masks. The top part of the krater is decorated with motifs both ornamental (gadroons, palm leaves, acanthus, garlands) and figurative: the top of the neck presents a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

of animals and most of all, four statuettes ( two maenads, Dionysus and a sleeping satyre) are casually seated on the shoulders of the vase, in a pose foreshadowing that of the

Barberini Faun The life-size ancient but much restored marble statue known as the ''Barberini Faun'', ''Fauno Barberini'' or ''Drunken Satyr'' is now in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany. A faun is the Roman equivalent of a Greek satyr. In Greek mythology, saty ...

. On the belly, the frieze in low relief, 32.6 cm tall, is devoted to the divinities

Ariadne Ariadne (; grc-gre, Ἀριάδνη; la, Ariadne) was a Cretan princess in Greek mythology. She was mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. She is best known for having ...

and

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...

, surrounded by revelling

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exa ...

s and

maenad In Greek mythology, maenads (; grc, μαινάδες ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, ...

s of the Bacchic ''

thiasos In Greek mythology and religion, the ''thiasus'' ( el, θίασος, thíasos), was the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, often pictured as inebriated revelers. Many of the myths of Dionysus are connected with his arrival in the form of a processio ...

'', or ecstatic retinue. There is also a warrior wearing only one sandal, whose identity is disputed:

Pentheus In Greek mythology, Pentheus (; grc, Πενθεύς, Pentheús) was a king of Thebes. His father was Echion, the wisest of the Spartoi. His mother was Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia. His sister was ...

Lycurgus of Thrace In Greek mythology, Lycurgus (/laɪˈkɜːrɡəs/; Ancient Greek: Λυκοῦργος ''Lykoûrgos'', Ancient Greek: ykôrɡos (also Lykurgos, Lykourgos) was the king of the Edoni in Thrace, son of Dryas, the "oak", and father of a son whose n ...

, or perhaps the "one-sandalled"

Jason Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He w ...

Argonaut The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', ...

fame.

Dating

The exact date and place of making are disputed. Barr-Sharrar thinks it was made around 370 BC in Athens. Based on the dialectal forms used in the inscription, some commentators think it was fabricated in

Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thess ...

at the time of the revolt of the

Aleuadae The Aleuadae ( grc, Ἀλευάδαι) were an ancient Thessalian family of Larissa, who claimed descent from the mythical Aleuas. The Aleuadae were the noblest and most powerful among all the families of Thessaly, whence Herodotus calls its memb ...

, around 350 BC. Others date it between 330 and 320 BC and credit it to bronzesmiths of the royal court of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

Inscription

The funerary inscription on the krater reads:

ΑΣΤΙΟΥΝΕΙΟΣ ΑΝΑΞΑΓΟΡΑΙΟΙ ΕΣ ΛΑΡΙΣΑΣ

The inscription is in the

variant of the Aeolian dialect: (''Astioúneios Anaxagoraīoi es Larísas''), "Astiouneios, son of Anaxagoras, from

Larisa Larissa (; el, Λάρισα, , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also capital of the Larissa regiona ...

. Lete Derveni — ca. 350-300 B
SEG 24:571
/ref> If transcribed in

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

, the inscription could read: (''Astíōn Anaxagórou ek Larísēs'').

Notes

Bibliography

* E. Giouri, ''Ο κρατήρας του Δερβενίου'', Athènes, Goebel, 1978. (Tr. "The krater of Derveni") * Πέτρος Γ. Θεμελης, Γιάννης Π. Τσουράτσογλου, ''Οι Τάφοι του Δερβενίου'', Ταμείο αρχαιολογικών πόρων, Athens, 1997. . (Tr. Petros G. Themelis and Giannis Tsouratsoglou, "The tombs of Derveni". In Greek with English summaries). * Bernard Holtzmann and

Alain Pasquier Alain Pasquier (born 1 August 1942) is a French art historian specialising in ancient Greek art, museography and conservation. Biography Former student of the École Normale Supérieure (graduated 1962) and successful candidate of the Agrégat ...

, ''Histoire de l'art antique : l'art grec'', Documentation française, coll. « Manuels de l' École du Louvre », Paris, 1998 2-11-003866-7, p. 216-217. * G. Mihaïlov, « Observations sur le cratère de Dervéni », ''REA'' 93 (1991), p. 39-54. * B. Barr-Sharrar, ''The Derveni Krater: Masterpiece of Classical Greek Metalwork'', Princeton, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2008. . * J.H. Musgrave, "The cremated remains from Tombs II and III at Nea Mihaniona and Tomb Beta at Derveni", The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 85 (1990), pp. 301–325.
Sideris, A., "Les tombes de Derveni. Quelques remarques sur la toreutique"
''Revue Archéologique'' 2000, pp. 3–36.

Attribution

* This page draws heavily on :fr:Cratère de Derveni article in the French-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of Nov. 12, 2006.

External links

{{Authority control Hellenistic art 4th-century BC Greek art Art of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) Culture of ancient Thessaly Dionysus in art Archaeological discoveries in Greece Ancient Greek metalwork 1962 archaeological discoveries Individual vases Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki