The Rider Amphora is the name given to a Melian pithamphora in the

National Archaeological Museum, Athens The National Archaeological Museum () in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and ...

with the inventory number 912. It dates from around 660 BC.

Description

The Rider Amphora is high and has a comparatively wide shape for this kind of vessel. The name of the Rider Amphora derives from its main image of horses and riders. The empty space around this image is filled with various designs inherited from earlier

Cycladic art The ancient Cycladic culture flourished in the islands of the Aegean Sea from c. 3300 to 1100 BCE. Along with the Minoan civilization and Mycenaean Greece, the Cycladic people are counted among the three major Aegean cultures. Cycladic art there ...

, including

zigzag A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular. In geometry, this pattern is described as a ...

bands and

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

s. The neck of the amphora is decorated with bulging double

palmette The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art o ...

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 ...

s, which are separated from one another by vertical bands. On the backside, the painter depicts two riderless horses facing each other. There are no images on the other two sides.

Primary image

The primary image recalls that on the somewhat older Horses Amphora, on which two horses stand opposite each other, with a large

between them. The Rider Amphora's image differs in that a rider sits on each of the horses' backs. Each rider leads another horse with him, using a rope, which is depicted slightly offset behind the rider's horse. Commentator Werner Ekschmitt claims that the painter of this amphora does not demonstrate the same degree of talent as the painter of the Horses Amphora. The bodies of his horses are far too long and as a result the rider appears unnaturally small. Convention apparently forced the painter to adapt his motif to a restricted space.

Bibliography

* Werner Ekschmitt: ''Kunst und Kultur der Kykladen, Teil II: Geometrische und Archaische Zeit'', Mainz am Rhein 1986 ( Kulturgeschichte der Antike, Vol. 28.2), pp. 138-139, Tab. 40 Amphorae National Archaeological Museum, Athens Archaeological discoveries in the Aegean Islands Horses in art {{greece-archaeology-stub