Rhyton

A ''rhyton'' (: ''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, or merely at table; in other words, a cup. A ''rhyton'' is typically formed in the shape of either an animal's head or an animal horn; in the latter case it often terminates in the shape of an animal's body. ''Rhyta'' were produced over large areas of ancient Eurasia during the Bronze and Iron Ages, especially from Persia to the Balkans.

Many have an opening at the bottom through which the liquid fell; this could be either for pouring libations, or as a way of drinking. Others did not, and were merely used as drinking cups, with the characteristic, shared by many early cup forms, that they were "unstable" and could not usually be set down on a surface without spilling their contents.

The English word ''rhyton'' originates in the ancient Greek word ' (''rhy̆tón ''or'' rhŭtón''). The conical ''rhyton'' form has been known in the Aegean region since the Bronze Age, 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, 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 ''*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 libation) in the same way that wine is drunk from a wineskin 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, 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; it is shown with the bull ideogram (*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). 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.

Geography

Not every drinking horn or libation vessel was pierced at the bottom. An aperture invites 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 Persia, 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, 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 (Heraklion 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.

Rhytons are represented in Chinese archaeology.

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. 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's epic ''Dionysiaca.'' He describes the satyrs 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'.
Károly Kerényi, 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." 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 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:AchaemenidGoblet02.jpg, Urartian silver ''rhyton'' from Erebuni Fortress
File:Achaemenid Goblet Erebuni.JPG, Achaemenid silver ''rhyton'' from Erebuni Fortress
File:Persia - Achaemenian Vessels.jpg, Achaemenid Persian Lion Rhyton, 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, 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, Middle Bronze Age, 1750–1650 BC
File:Museu arqueologic de Creta25.jpg, Minoan steatite ''rhyta'' in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum
File: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 satyrs cavorting, 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 century BC Greek gold and bronze drinking horn with head of Dionysus from Tamoikin Art Fund
File:Aleria, Rhyton, tête de chien.jpg, An Ancient Greek ''rhyton'' serving vessel in the shape of a dog's head, made by Brygos, 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 400 BCE, 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
File:Achaemenid-Persian-Lion-Rhyton-Persepolis,Iran.jpg, Achaemenid Lion Rhyton from Persepolis, kept at National Museum of Iran.
File:Ankara Archaeology and art museum Rhyton Bronze Achaemenid Persian 500-400 BC 2019 3473.jpg, Bronze Rhyton from Iran's Achaemenid period, Erimtan Archaeology and Art Museum.

See also

* Silver Siege Rhyton
* Achaemenid Persian Lion Rhyton

Notes

External links

*
More pictures of rhyta:
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Achaemenid Persian Lion Rhyton
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Minoan Bull-head Rhyton
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Tibetan Rhyton
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Cretan-style Rhyton from Egypt
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Attic red-figure vase, satyr holding a rhyton

{{Greek vase shapes

Ancient Greek pot shapes
Archaeological artefact types
Drinkware
Libation
Ancient art in metal
Drinking horns