Rhyton with death of Orpheus from Vassil Bojkov collection

A rhyton (plural rhytons or, following the Greek plural, rhyta) is a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk or to be poured in some ceremony such as

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid, or grains such as rice, as an offering to a deity or spirit, or in memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures today. Various substanc ...

, or merely at table. A rhyton is typically formed in the shape of an animal's head. Items were produced over large areas of ancient

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

, especially from

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

to the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

. Many have an opening at the bottom through which the liquid fell; others did not, and were merely used as drinking cups, with the characteristic that they could not usually be set down on a surface without spilling their contents. The English word ''rhyton'' originates in the ancient

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ' (''rhy̆tón ''or'' rhŭtón''). The conical rhyton form has been known in the Aegean region since the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

, or the 2nd millennium BC. However, it was by no means confined to that region. Similar in form to, and perhaps originating from, the

drinking horn A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a drinking vessel. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity, especially the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in ...

, it has been widespread over Eurasia since prehistoric times.

Name and function

Liddell and Scott give a standard derivation from Greek ''rhein'', "to flow", which, according to Julius Pokorny, is from

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

''*sreu-'', "flow". As ''rhutos'' is "stream", the neuter, ''rhuton'', would be some sort of object associated with pouring, which is equivalent to English ''pourer''. Many vessels considered rhytons featured a wide mouth at the top and a hole through a conical constriction at the bottom from which the fluid ran. The idea is that one scooped wine or water from a storage vessel or similar source, held it up, unstoppered the hole with one's thumb, and let the fluid run into the mouth (or onto the ground in

) in the same way that wine is drunk from a

wineskin A wineskin is an ancient type of bottle made of leathered animal skin, usually from goats or sheep, used to store or transport wine. History Its first mentions come from Ancient Greece, where, in the parties called Bacchanalia, dedicated to t ...

today. Smith points out that this use is testified in classical paintings and accepts Athenaeus's etymology that it was named ', "from the flowing". Smith also categorized the name as having been a recent form (in classical times) of a vessel formerly called the ''keras'', "horn", in the sense of a drinking horn. The word ''rhyton'' is not present in what is known about

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for th ...

, the oldest form of Greek written in Linear B. However, the bull's head rhyton, of which many examples survive, is mentioned as ''ke-ra-a'' on tablet KN K 872, an inventory of vessels at

Knossos Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city. Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...

; it is shown with the bull

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by famili ...

(*227^VAS; also known as ''rhyton''). Ventris and Chadwick restored the word as the adjective ''*kera(h)a'', with a Mycenaean intervocalic ''h''. Rhyta shaped after bulls are filled through the large opening and emptied through the secondary, smaller one. This means that two hands are required: one to close the secondary opening and one to fill the rhyton. This has led some scholars to believe that rhytons were typically filled with the help of two people or with the help of a chain or a rope that would be passed through a handle. Rhytons modeled after animals were designed to make it look like the animal was drinking when the vessel was being filled. A bull rhyton weighed about three kilograms when empty and up to six kilograms when full. Other rhytons with animal themes were modeled after boars, lions, and lionesses (such as

Lion head horn The lion head horn is an undecorated silver horn that has a flaring rim and tapers down to the tip. It curves at an obtuse angle, and its lower extremity is inserted into the back of the gold lion head, and fixed with four gold rivets. The vase i ...

). Some shapes, such as lioness rhyta, could be filled through simple submersion, thanks to the vessel's shape and buoyancy. Horizontally designed rhyta, like those modeled after lionesses, could be filled by being lowered into a fluid and supported. Vertically designed rhyta, like those modeled after boars, required another hand to cover the primary opening and to prevent the liquid from spilling as the vessel was filled. Rhyta were often used to strain liquids such as wine, beer, and oil. Some rhyta were used in blood rituals and animal sacrifice. In these cases, the blood may have been thinned with wine. Some vessels were modeled after the animal with which they were intended to be used during ritual, but this was not always the case.

Wide provenance

It cannot be proven that every drinking horn or libation vessel was pierced at the bottom, especially in the prehistoric phases of the form. The scoop function would have come first. Once the holes began, however, they invited zoomorphic interpretation and plastic decoration in the forms of animal heads—bovids, equines, cervids, and even canines—with the fluid pouring from the animals' mouths. Rhyta occur among the remains of civilizations speaking different languages and language groups in and around the Near and Middle East, such as

, from the second millennium BC. They are often shaped like animals' heads or horns and can be very ornate and compounded with precious metals and stones. In

Minoan Crete The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...

, silver-and-gold bulls' heads with round openings for the wine (permitting wine to pour from the bulls' mouths) seemed particularly common, for several have been recovered from the great palaces ( Iraklion Archaeological Museum). One of the oldest examples of the concept of an animal figure holding a long flat ended conical shaped vessel in hands was known to be discovered from Susa, In Southwestern Iran, in Proto Elamite era about 3rd millennium BC, is a silver figurine of a cow with body of a sitting woman actually offering the vessel between both her bovine hoofs. Rhytons were very common in ancient Persia, where they were called ''takuk'' (تکوک). After a Greek victory against Persia, much silver, gold, and other luxuries, including numerous rhytons, were brought to Athens. Persian rhytons were immediately imitated by Greek artists. Not all rhyta were so valuable; many were simply decorated conical cups in ceramic.

Greek symbolism

Classical Athenian pottery, such as red-figured vases, are typically painted with themes from mythology. One standard theme depicts satyrs, which symbolize ribaldry, with rhyta and wineskins. The horn-shaped rhyta are carefully woven in composition with the erect male organs of the satyrs, but this blatantly sexual and somewhat humorous theme appears to be a late development, consistent with Athenian humor, as is expressed in the plays of

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his for ...

. The ornate and precious rhyta of the great civilizations of earlier times are grandiose rather than ribald, which gives the democratic vase paintings an extra satirical dimension. The connection of satyrs with wine and rhyta is made in

Nonnus Nonnus of Panopolis ( grc-gre, Νόννος ὁ Πανοπολίτης, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century CE) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Theb ...

's epic ''Dionysiaca.'' He describes the

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 at the first trampling of the grapes during the invention of wine-making by Dionysos: :...the fruit bubbled out red juice with white foam. They scooped it up with oxhorns, instead of cups which had not yet been seen, so that ever after the cup of mixed wine took this divine name of 'Winehorn'.

Karl Kerenyi Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austri ...

, in quoting this passage, remarks, "At the core of this richly elaborated myth, in which the poet even recalls the rhyta, it is not easy to separate the Cretan elements from those originating in

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

." The connection to which he refers is a pun not present in English translation: the wine is mixed (''kerannymenos''), which appears to contain the bull's horn (''keras''), the ancient Greek name of the rhyton. In the myth,

ichor In Greek mythology, ichor () is the ethereal fluid that is the blood of the gods and/or immortals. The Ancient Greek word () is of uncertain etymology, and has been suggested to be a foreign word. In classical myth Ichor originates in Greek ...

from Olympus falls among rocks. From it grow grapevines. One grows around a pine tree, where a serpent, winding up the tree, eats the grapes. Dionysus, seeing the snake, pursues it into a hole in the rocks. Following an oracle of Rhea, the Cretan mountain goddess, Dionysus hollows out the hole and tramples grapes in it, dancing and shouting. The goddess, the rocks, the snake, and the dancing are Cretan themes. The cult of Dionysus was Anatolian. At its most abstract, the rhyton is the container of the substance of life, celebrated by the ritual dancing on the grapes.

Gallery

File:Achaemenid Goblet Erebuni.JPG,

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

silver rhyton from Erebuni File:Persia - Achaemenian Vessels.jpg, Achaemenid Persian Lion Rhyton, c. 500 BC File:National Archaeological Museum, Bulgaria - Rhyton1.JPG, Greek rhyton for the Thracian market, 4th century BC File:Greek Rhyton in griffin form DMA.jpg, Pottery griffon's head rhyton, Apulia, c. 350–300 BC File:Ceremonial vessel (rhyton) in the shape of a grape cluster, Alishar, the Mansion, Middle Bronze Age, 1750-1650 BC, ceramic - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07649.JPG, Ceramic ceremonial rhyton in the shape of a grape cluster, Alişar Hüyük,

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

, Middle Bronze Age, 1750–1650 BC Image:Museu arqueologic de Creta25.jpg, Minoan steatite rhyta in the Iraklion Archaeological Museum Image:Boar rhyton Louvre AO18521.jpg, Boar's head rhyton from Ugarit, view from the bottom File:Sotades Painter - Red-Figure Rhyton - Walters 482050 - Side B.jpg, Pottery rhyton, decorated with

red-figure Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens around 520 BCE and remained in use until the late 3rd century BCE. It replaced the previously dominant style of black-figure va ...

s cavorting, c. 450 BC File:Rhyton Greek Thracian silver, end of 4th c BC, Prague Kinsky, NM-HM10 1407, 140856.jpg, Greek silver rhyton for the Thracian market, end 4th century File:Rhyton terminating in the forepart of a wild cat MET DT905.jpg, Rhyton terminating in the forepart of a wild cat, 1st century BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art File:4th cent. B.C. Greek gold and bronze drinking horn with head of Dionysus from Tamoikin Art Fund.jpg, 4th cent. B.C. Greek gold and bronze drinking horn with head of Dionysus from Tamoikin Art Fund image:Aleria, Rhyton, tête de chien.jpg, An

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

rhyton serving vessel in the shape of a dog's head, made by

Brygos Brygos was an ancient Greek potter, active in Athens between 490 and 470 BC. He is known as a producer of excellent drinking cups. About 200 of his pieces are known. The workshop of Brygos employed a red-figure vase painter who is conventionally c ...

, early 5th century BC. Jérôme Carcopino Museum, Department of Archaeology, Aleria File:Greek Gilt-silver Rhyton (Libation Vessel) In the Form of a Stag's Head.jpg, The Stag’s Head Rhyton dating to 400BCE, the largest so far known of recent examples, recently surrendered and worth $3.5 million, originally rediscovered in the 20th century after rampant looting in Milas, Turkey

Name and function

Wide provenance

Greek symbolism

Gallery

See also

Notes

External links