Athenian Eye Cups in Context

Volume 119, Number 3July 2015

www.ajaonline.org

ARCHAEOLOGYThe Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

This article is © The Archaeological Institute of America and was originally published in AJA 119(3):295–341.

This e-print is supplied to the author for noncommercial use only, following the terms outlined in the accompanying cover letter. The definitive electronic version of the article can be found at:

www.jstor.org/stable/10.3764/aja.119.3.0295.

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

ARCHAEOLOGY656 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02215 • Tel.: 617-353-9361 • www.ajaonline.org

American Journal of ArchaeologyVolume 119, Number 3July 2015Pages 295–341 DOI: 10.3764/aja.119.3.0295

295

Athenian Eye Cups in Contextsheramy d. bundrick

article

www.ajaonline.org

Since the late 1970s, scholars have explored Athenian eye cups within the presumed context of the symposion, privileging a hypothetical Athenian viewer and themes of masking and play. Such emphases, however, neglect chronology and distribution, which reveal the complexity of the pottery trade during the late sixth and the fifth centuries B.C.E. Although many eye cups have been found in Athens—namely on the Acropolis and mainly from late in the series—the majority come from funerary, sanctuary, and domestic contexts to the west and east. Most of the earliest, largest, and highest-quality examples were exported to Etruria, where the symposion as the Athenians knew it did not exist. Workshops and traders were clearly aware of their audiences at home and abroad and shifted production and distribution of vases to suit. The Etruscan consumers of eye cups made conscious choices regarding their purchase and use. Tomb assemblages from Vulci and elsewhere reveal their multi-valent significance: they are emblematic of banqueting in life and death, apotropaic entities, likely with ritual uses. Rather than being signs of hellenization in a foreign culture, Athenian eye cups—like all Greek vases—were brought into Etruria, then integrated, manipulated, and even transformed to suit local needs and beliefs.1

introduction

In his seminal work, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1848), antiquarian and intrepid traveler George Dennis spoke of the ancient Greek vases that were discovered in Italy and that he encountered during his trips. He seems to have been particularly drawn to cups and other shapes decorated with eyes—in his time, most known examples were those found during Luciano Bonaparte’s excavations at Vulci—describing them as singular, remarkable, and curious, writing of their “mysterious eyes.”2 He devoted a brief appen-dix to their possible interpretations and included woodcuts of two exam-ples in the chapters dedicated to Vulci and the Bonaparte estates at nearby Musignano. Dennis observed that the meaning of the eyes “has not been satisfactorily determined” and elsewhere stated that these vases continued “to perplex antiquaries.”3 His comments on Athenian eye cups proved to be only the beginning of a long line of discussions, as subsequent scholars have remained intrigued by their great numbers and striking appearance.

1 This article expands on talks given in 2011 at the 112th Annual Meeting of the Ar-chaeological Institute of America (San Antonio, Texas) and the Tampa Museum of Art. I thank Thomas H. Carpenter, moderator, and fellow speakers at the AIA session for their comments; Seth Pevnick of the Tampa Museum of Art for the invitation to speak; and audience members for their observations. For assistance with photographs and per-missions, I thank Sue Bell and Jennifer Riley (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); Irene Bösel and Marcel Danner (Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München); Ruth Bowler (Walters Art Museum); Hannah Kendall and David Gowers (Ashmolean Muse-um); Piper Wynn Severance (Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Maria Laura Falsini and Massimiliano Piemonte (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Me-ridionale); Mario Iozzo and Mariacristina Guidotti (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeo-logici della Toscana–Firenze); and Seth Pevnick and Amanda Seadler (Tampa Museum of Art). At the AJA, many thanks to Editor-in-Chief Sheila Dillon, the two anonymous reviewers, Director of Publishing Madeleine J. Donachie, Editor Katrina Swartz, and Editorial Assistant Lindsey Mazurek. Any errors that remain are my own.

2 Dennis 1848, 434.3 Dennis 1848, 438, 425, respectively.

© 2015 Archaeological Institute of America

SHERAMY D. BUNDRICK296 [AJA 119

Eye cups first emerged in Athenian black-figure ca. 540–530 B.C.E., with the famous Dionysos kylix by Exekias—found at Vulci and acquired for King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1841—ranking among the earliest sur-viving examples (fig. 1).4 The innovative Exekias may have created or at least popularized both the Type A shape and the eye motif for Athenian cups, although the origins of both continue to be debated. Standing at 12.8 cm high and with a diameter of 30.4 cm minus the handles, the Dionysos cup has a deep bowl estimated to hold more than 3 liters of liquid at full capacity.5 Large contour eyes with pronounced tear glands and ringed irises dominate the exterior, while scenes of warriors fighting over soldiers’ bodies, possibly Trojan themes, occupy the areas around the handles. An ornament be-tween the eyes resembles a nose, and the painter drew arched eyebrows to complete the facial image. Inside, Dionysos floats in his ship on a sea of coral red, the mast blossoming into grapevines and grape clusters, with a school of dolphins framing the composition. Exekias’ signature (“ΕΧΣΕΚΙΑΣΕΠΟΕΣΕ”) rings the foot, its carefully spaced letters complementing the symmetry and linearity of the eyes above.

After Exekias, eye cups enjoyed significant popular-ity in black-figure, the motif primarily associated with the Type A shape.6 Produced by a variety of painters and workshops, the quality of black-figure eye cups ranged from very fine examples to more carelessly drawn specimens later in the series. Their subject matter likewise varied but often invoked Dionysian themes appropriate for the shape, while leering Gor-

4 Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 8729/2044 (ABV, 146, no. 21; BAPD, no. 310403; Beazley Addenda 2 41; CVA Munich 13 [Germany 77], 14–19, pls. 1–4; Paralipomena 60; Bonaparte 1829, 179–82, cat. no. 1900; MacKay 2010, 221–41, cat. no. 20; Paleothodoros 2012a, 462–66 [all with numerous further references]). Hannestad (1986, 42) notes the theory that Exekias invented the Athenian eye cup and points out that the Lydan workshop was not far behind in creating them. The two fragmentary Lydan eye cups discussed in her article, both in the Villa Giulia, are unprovenanced but come from Etruria.

5 CVA Munich 13 (Germany 77), 14. As Clark (2009, 96) notes, however, this and other capacity measurements given in CVA Munich 13 (Germany 77) are “deceptive,” because they represent the cups when filled to the rim. Using a soft-ware program developed by the Centre des Recherches Ar-chéologiques of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Clark (2009, 98, table 3) demonstrates that when filled to the level of the handle attachments (ca. 50% capacity), the Dionysos cup (supra n. 4) would hold ca. 1.17 liters.

6 Jordan (1988) remains the most comprehensive discus-sion of black-figure eye cups, although her work is focused on stylistic development more than iconography, interpretation, or context. See also relevant sections of Bloesch 1940; Villard 1946; Beazley 1986.

goneia became favored for the interiors. As the new red-figure technique evolved, black-figure eye cups were joined by bilingual examples and red-figure cups of the Type B shape, although the latter are less com-mon and restricted to only a few workshops.7 Eye cups faded from popularity around the time of the Persian Wars and did not recur.

As with many types of Athenian vases, modern in-terpretations of eye cups have tended to postulate and privilege a hypothetical Athenian viewer. Since the 1970s in particular, scholars have explored eye cups within the presumed environment of the Greek sympo-sion, concentrating on masking, transformation, and play. Broader consideration of the eye motif, however, and especially consideration of the distribution of eye cups, reveals the limitations of this approach. Eye cups were not confined to Athenian findspots; indeed, the earliest, largest, and most innovative examples tend to be found elsewhere, especially Italy. Based on sur-viving evidence at Athens and other Greek sites, cups and other vessels with eyes were primarily associated with graves and sanctuaries, while the best evidence for eye cups at banquets comes from non-Greek popu-lations in the east and west—especially in Etruria.8 In this article, I discuss the ways in which eye cups show the complexity of the pottery market in the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C.E., the heyday of Athenian exports. Workshops and traders seem to have been very aware of their markets at home and abroad and shifted production and distribution of eye cups to suit. Meanwhile, the consumers of eye cups, most notably the Etruscans, made conscious choices regarding the

7 See Cohen (1978) for bilingual eye cups and Williams (1988) for Late Archaic red-figure examples.

8 Previous studies on Greek vases in Etruria (although not specifically on eye cups) with differing approaches and opin-ions include Martelli 1979, 1989; Meyer 1980; Lissarrague 1987; Hannestad 1988, 1989; Spivey 1991, 2006; Osborne 1996, 2001, 2004, 2007a; Lewis 1997, 2003, 2009; Blinkenberg 1999; Stissi 1999; Paleothodoros 2002, 2007a; Avramidou 2006; de la Genière 2009; Lynch 2009.

fig. 1. Attic eye cup by Exekias, from Vulci. Munich, An-tikensammlungen, inv. no. 8729/2044 (C. Koppermann; Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München).


ATHENIAN EYE CUPS IN CONTEXT2015] 297

purchase and use of these vessels. Rather than signify-ing the hellenization of a foreign culture, Athenian eye cups—like all Greek vases—were brought into Etruria, then integrated, manipulated, and even transformed to satisfy local needs and beliefs.

masks at the symposion?

In a 1976 article featuring the so-called Bomford cup—a striking piece with a Silen mask between the eyes and a penis-shaped foot (fig. 2)—Boardman pre-sented a reading of eye cups that established a new and persistent trajectory for their interpretation: “The whole eye cup is itself in the form of a mask,” he wrote. “Consider one raised to the lips of a drinker: the eyes cover his eyes, the handles his ears, the gaping under-foot his mouth.”9 This quotation and its sentiments have been repeated and developed elsewhere, com-plete with photographs of an eye cup held dutifully up to a “drinker’s” face.10 In a 1986 article, Ferrari built on the theme of masking, arguing that eye cups show “dramatic masks of different characters, most often of silens” and relating them to the early development of theater.11 Kunisch took Ferrari’s idea a step further, using the different shapes of eyes found on the cups (“masculine” and “feminine” eyes) to distinguish be-tween masks of Silens and masks of nymphs.12

The concept of the drinker’s transformation, as-suming an alternative identity within the symposion’s shifting world, has remained paramount in the latest readings: the drinker becomes the being depicted on the cup and displays that face to his companions. This interpretation has been linked in turn to Dionysian iconology and theories of alterity, and even to social class through the elite associations of the symposion.

9 Boardman 1976, 288. On the Bomford cup, a black-figure cup in the manner of the Lysippides Painter (Oxford, Ash-molean Museum, inv. no. 1974.344), see BAPD, no. 396; Boardman 1976; Hedreen 2007, 230, fig. 4.13; Yatromanola-kis 2009; Coccagna 2009, 105–42 (on this and other phallus-footed cups).

10 E.g., Boardman 1996, 274, fig. 278; Neer 2002, 41, fig. 11; Coccagna 2009, figs. 72, 73. Boardman’s exact quotation appears, among other places, in Ferrari 1986, 11 n. 27; Neer 2002, 41; Hedreen 2007, 230.

11 Ferrari 1986, 11. Bell (1977), focusing specifically on eye cups that included frontal faces of Dionysos between the eyes, had also speculated on a connection to early theater.

12 Kunisch 1990. The number of vases with “feminine” eyes without pronounced tear ducts is much smaller than those with “masculine” eyes ( Jordan 1988, 307–11, cat. nos. F1–F37). Steinhart (1995, 61–2) also discusses the feminine eyes as belonging to nymphs, while Frontisi-Ducroux (1995, 101) compares the “noses” on eye cups to the snub noses of satyrs/Silens. Villanueva-Puig (2004, 13) argues that the eyes belong to panthers—i.e., Dionysian felines.

Neer explains it thus in his 2002 book Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting:13

The Dionysiac emblem par excellence, the mask is a figure of that alienation from self which defines both dramatic performance and drunken reverie. With an eye-cup—any eye-cup—the symposiast becomes an actor, a participant in a complex drama of presence and absence. One minute he is there among friends, and the next he is gone, replaced by the staring eyes of the cup/mask. He shuttles between the two, as the vessel’s eyes replace his own. The result is a certain fluidity of identity, a playful uncertainty as to just who is who and what is what. Such play is absolutely typical of the Greek symposium.

Related is the belief that the eye motif is meant to be humorous, again invoking sympotic play.14

The idea of eye cups relating to masks and masking is not far-fetched, for some eye cups, albeit a minor-ity, do feature nose-like forms and/or ears in addi-tion to large eyes. Many of these examples date from the earliest production of eye cups, such as Exekias’ kylix (see fig. 1), while others belong to the so-called Chalcidizing type and echo the potting and decorative

13 Neer 2002, 42. For Dionysian alterity and the eye motif, see also, e.g., Frontisi-Ducroux 1989, 1995; Lissarrague 1990, 140–43; Isler-Kerényi 2007, 171–93, 202–7. Yatromanolakis (2009) takes an approach similar to Neer’s in investigating the Bomford cup specifically; see also Coccagna 2009.

14 See, e.g., Mitchell 2009, 36–46. Note, however, that Mitchell avoids discussions of alterity and transformation and focuses primarily on the decorative. Coccagna (2009, 111), focusing specifically on phallus-footed eye cups, states, “I maintain that these cups are very deliberately multivalent, meant to play tricks that hinge on the sympotic setting and the social reception of the male citizen body.”

fig. 2. The so-called Bomford cup, an Attic eye cup in the manner of the Lysippides Painter. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. no. 1974.344 (© Ashmolean Museum, Uni-versity of Oxford).



schemes of so-called Chalcidian eye cups (discussed later in this article).15 Some Chalcidizing cups in-clude a pair of Silen ears together with the eyes and Silen-like “nose.” One example, signed by the potter Nikosthenes, is in the Ménil Collection; another, said to be from Vulci, is in the Tampa Museum of Art (fig. 3).16 The appearance of mask-like frontal faces on the exteriors of some eye cups, such as the Bomford cup noted above, is similarly suggestive. These faces can represent Silens, Dionysos, and occasionally a Gorgon, their bold, engaging frontality recalling frontal faces elsewhere in Attic vase painting.17 A striking and well-known instance of the latter appears on an eye cup from Vulci (today in Munich), where on each side a frontal-faced satyr with spread legs sits between the eyes and plays the double aulos.18

A meaning for the eye cups tied exclusively to the Athenian symposion, however, becomes hard to sus-tain once the evidence is examined more closely. First, many eye cups—including many of the finest and ear-liest examples—literally do not fit. The photograph of a “drinker” published in Neer’s book shows an unat-tributed eye cup that measures 23 cm in diameter; this cup is close to the average diameter for Late Archaic cups, which hovers around 20 cm.19 The make-believe

15 On nose-like forms on eye cups, see Jordan 1988, 9, cat. no. C1 [the Exekias cup]; 13–14, cat. nos. C2–16; 31–2, cat. nos. C24–41. Most of these either were or are likely to have been found in Etruria. On Chalcidizing eye cups, defined by their distinctive foot, see Jordan 1988, 319–31 (with lists at 320, cat. nos. C264, C265; 321–23, cat. nos. W157–78; 329, cat. nos. B125–29). Most of these, too, seem to have been export-ed to Etruria, although Acropolis Museum fragment 1.1556 may come from a Chalcidizing cup (cf. Beazley in ABV, 205).

16 Houston, Ménil Collection, inv. no. 70-50-DJ (BAPD, no. 477; Tosto 1999, cat. no. 156, fig. 85; Hedreen 2007, 229, fig. 4.12); Tampa, Tampa Museum of Art, ex Noble Collec-tion, inv. no. 86.51 (BAPD, no. 350999; Beazley Addenda 2 55; Paralipomena 93). As Tosto notes (1999, 144), Nikosthenes’ workshop may have introduced the Chalcidizing shape to At-tic pottery; cf. Boardman 1974, 107–8; Jordan 1988, 326–28 (more cautious). One should, however, use caution in identi-fying all forms that appear between the eyes as noses. Cohen (2006, 37) observes that the “stark, abstracted leaflike form that Oltos . . . favors on his final group of bilingual eye-cups . . . has sometimes been called a nose, but should simply be called a trefoil.”

17 For examples with frontal faces of Dionysos on the exte-rior, see Bell 1977 (Krokotos Group). For references for the Bomford cup, on which a Silen face is depicted, see supra n. 9. For a black-figure eye cup with a frontal face of Medusa on the exterior (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 81146), see Mack 2002, 573, fig. 2. On frontal faces in vase painting generally, see Frontisi-Ducroux 1989, 1995; MacKay 2001; Hedreen 2007.

18 Diam. 30.8 cm. Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 2088 (ABV, 232; Beazley Addenda 2 60; CVA Munich 13 [Ger-many 77], 98–9, pls. 62, 63).

19 The cup shown in Neer’s (2002, 41, fig. 11) book is in the

drinker’s face fits comfortably inside the cup’s bowl, and Boardman’s observation rings true as “the eyes cover his eyes, the handles his ears.” But while many eye cups have similar or smaller measurements, many others surpass them. The bilingual eye cup by Oltos held in a photograph in Boardman’s book Greek Art has a diameter of 32.5 cm and is much larger than the drinker’s head.20 Exekias’ kylix (see fig. 1) measures 30.5 cm in diameter; the Bomford cup (see fig. 2) is 34 cm across; and the Chalcidizing cup in the Ménil Collection is 35.9 cm.21 Larger still are a black-figure eye cup by the Lysippides Painter in Munich, which has a diameter of 40.2 cm and an estimated capacity of more than 6 liters, and a cup in the manner of the Lysippides Painter from the Tuscan site of Foiano della Chiana (discussed later in this article), which has a diameter of 60 cm (fig. 4).22 Neer says that a bilingual eye cup originally from Chiusi and now in Palermo “was meant to be handled and used . . . filled with wine, lifted to the lips, set down on a tabletop,” but all of these things would be difficult to accomplish with a kylix 53.5 cm in diameter.23 Such large kylikes

Harvard University Art Museums (inv. no. 1925.30.19); see also BAPD, no. 13318; CVA Hoppin and Gallatin Collections 5 (United States of America 1), pl. 4.

20 Boardman 1996, 274, fig. 278. On the bilingual cup by Ol-tos, from Vulci (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. no. V515), see ARV 2, 44, no. 85; 56, no. 27; BAPD, no. 200292.

21 For the cup by Exekias, see supra n. 4. For the Bomford cup, see supra n. 9. For the cup in the Ménil Collection, see supra n. 16.

22 On the Munich cup (Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 2080/J1028) from Vulci, ca. 530–520 B.C.E., see ABV, 256, no. 22; Beazley Addenda 2 67; BAPD, no. 302231; CVA Munich 13 (Ger-many 77), 30–2, pls. 10, 11; Paralipomena 114. Clark (2009, 98, table 3) used the software program noted above (supra n. 5) to calculate the capacity to the upper limits of the handles of this cup as 3.25 liters and the capacity to the midpoint as 1.89 liters. On the cup from Foiano della Chiana (Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 74624, currently on loan to the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona), see infra n. 269. I thank Mario Iozzo for providing measure-ments of the Florence/Cortona cup.

23 Neer (2002, 41) attributed the kylix (Palermo, Museo Ar-cheologico A. Salinas, inv. no. V650) to Andokides as potter

fig. 3. Attic so-called Chalcidizing eye cup from Vulci. Tam-pa, Tampa Museum of Art, Joseph Veach Noble Collection, purchased in part with funds donated by Craig and Mary Wood, inv. no. 86.51 (courtesy Tampa Museum of Art).



cannot be filled with much liquid or it will spill, nor can they be lifted very high; the photograph in Board-man’s book, for example, is misleading because Oltos’ cup is empty.24 Cups with diameters larger than 25 cm, certainly 30 cm, seem better suited for display or deposit than actual drinking.25 This observation does not disassociate eye cups from masking completely, given the allusions noted earlier, but a one-size-fits-all sympotic interpretation cannot stand.

A masking/sympotic reading applied to the eyes on Athenian cups also overlooks other shapes featur-ing similar decoration: amphoras, hydriae, kraters, kyathoi, and lekythoi.26 Nearly all black-figure, these range in quality—the later black-figure eye lekythoi in particular are weak in draftsmanship—but the num-ber of these vessels makes clear that the eye motif pos-sessed broader meaning. On one side of a black-figure amphora attributed to the Antimenes Painter, a Silen’s frontal face appears between the pair of large eyes, while on the reverse Dionysos walks with a drinking horn.27 Two pairs of eyes appear on a black-figure hydria attributed to the A.D. Painter and dated to 500 B.C.E. (fig. 5); originally from Vulci, the vessel was acquired by the British Museum in 1837 from the es-tate of Luciano Bonaparte. Dionysos sits between the eyes on the shoulder, while on the body, the eyes are

(ABV, 255, no. 7; 256, no. 21; ARV 2, 5, no. 14; 37, no. 1; BAPD, no. 200014; Beazley Addenda 2 66, 67, 150; Paralipomena 114, 321).

24 Cf. Osborne 2007b, 35–7. Clark (2009, 99) further ob-serves that modern methods used to measure the capacity of Greek vases, including using dry materials such as rice, peas, or small styrofoam balls, cannot take into account the weight of liquid. Cf. a fragmentary calyx krater by Euphro-nios (Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 8935), on which the frontal-faced symposiast Thoudemos gingerly sips from a wide kylix, holding it by its stem and barely tipping it upward (ARV 2, 1619, 1705; BAPD, no. 275007; Beazley Addenda 2 152; Paralipomena 322; Hedreen 2007, 237, fig. 4.16).

25 Tsingarida (2009, 2011, [forthcoming]) discusses over-sized Athenian cups in a series of articles. She argues that be-cause of their size, these cups were inappropriate for drinking use by mortals and can perhaps be linked to feasts of the The-oxenia in Greek contexts, with the cups being intended for heroes and gods, and to funerary and other rituals in Etrus-can contexts. I thank A. Tsingarida for sharing her forthcom-ing article in advance of publication.

26 Cf. Martens 1992, 357. Jordan (1988, 332–43) discusses eyes on other shapes and gives representative examples.

27 Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 8518/1480 (ABV, 275, no. 4; 691; BAPD, no. 320150; Beazley Addenda 2 72; Para-lipomena 121). Other black-figure neck amphoras with masks between eyes, all attributed by Beazley to members of the An-timenes Painter’s workshop, include inv. no. 14 in the Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer in Boulogne (ABV, 275, no. 6; BAPD, no. 320152); a fragment in Florence, inv. no. 141802 in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (ABV, 275, no. 7; BAPD, no. 320153); and inv. no. 3997 in the Antikensammlung in Ber-lin (ABV, 275, no. 8; BAPD, no. 320154; Beazley Addenda 2 72).

transformed into eye sirens who face each other and are surrounded by grapevines.28

On a few cups and some other shapes, a single eye is shown instead of a pair, further demonstrating the versatility of the motif. A cup from Vulci in the Vati-can, formerly in the collection of Giacinto Guglielmi, features one large single eye on each exterior side, flanked by young women on mules, surrounded by grapevines.29 Although this cup measures 22.7 cm in diameter and is thus average-sized, any masking ef-fect is negated. The eye-siren motif recurs on the ex-terior of a black-figure cup attributed to the Amasis Painter in Boston, here as a single figure occupying one entire side; on the opposite side, a pair of chub- by revelers recline and masturbate, and a dog defecates under each handle.30 A large single eye occupies the narrow neck of a Nikosthenic amphora today in Hanover and the shoulder of another Nikosthenic amphora today in Melbourne.31 Both lack provenance but likely come from Etruria; nearly all documented Nikosthenic amphoras were discovered at Cerveteri (Caere).

28 London, British Museum, inv. no. B342 (ABV, 335; BAPD, no. 301821; CVA London 6 [Great Britain 8], 10, pl. 94; Stein-hart 1995, pl. 5.3).

29 Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. no. 39558 (Buranelli 1997, 145–47, cat. no. 52).

30 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 10.951 (ABV, 157, no. 86; BAPD, no. 310515; Beazley Addenda 2 46; Paralipomena 65). The provenance of the cup is unknown, but it was pur-chased in Italy by Edward Perry Warren, so it is likely from Etruria.

31 Hannover, Kestner Museum, inv. no. 1961.23 (ARV 2, 122, no. 7; 1627; BAPD, no. 201948; Paralipomena 106; Tosto 1999, 221, cat. no. 80, pl. 128). Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, inv. no. D392/1980 (ABV, 221, no. 40; BAPD, no. 302789; Beazley Addenda 2 58; Tosto 1999, 221, cat. no. 77).

fig. 4. Attic eye cup in the manner of the Lysippides Paint-er, from Foiano della Chiana. Florence, Museo Archeo-logico Nazionale, inv. no. 74624, on long-term loan to the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona (courtesy Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana–Firenze).



Indeed, examination of the provenances and dis-tribution of eye cups and other eye vessels provides the most compelling reason to reconsider a compre-hensive association with the Athenian symposion.32 Chronology likewise becomes important, as one con-siders the findspots of eye cups from earlier vs. later in the series. To begin with Athens itself as the point of production: of the 107 eye vessels in the current corpus with a known findspot in the Agora, Acropo-lis, or Kerameikos cemetery (table 1), most are late in the series, and only one can be definitively associated with a house. Well J2:4 of the Agora, determined by Lynch to contain the debris of a single Athenian oikos, included at least one black-figure eye cup fragment at-tributable to the Leafless Group and dating to the early fifth century.33 Probably average-sized in diameter or slightly larger, a cup like this may have been valued for

32 Statistical analysis of Athenian vases and their distribution is hampered by many difficulties of evidence. For Attic eye vessels, the largest problem is that most are unprovenanced, either because of early discovery without proper records or because of more recent looting. Evidence is also weighted toward funerary sites vs. sanctuaries and settlements, and to-ward sites in Italy over sites elsewhere. Even with all these ca-veats, however, the sample of Attic eye vessels with at least a known site is large enough to yield suggestive hypotheses.

33 Lynch 2011, 121–23, 219, cat. no. 75, fig. 76 (Athens, Agora Museum, inv. no. P32786). Agora Museum inv. no. P32785 (Lynch 2011, 218, cat. no. 73, fig. 74) may be a non-joining fragment from the same cup; if so, the eye cup had Dionysian decoration and an estimated diameter of ca. 25 cm.

the masking effect discussed by Boardman and others and may have been used for symposia or other activi-ties of communal drinking and dining. This does not appear to have been an elite or particularly wealthy household, however, and the cup’s use seems to have been short-lived. While a set of red-figure cups and two coral red cups from the well seem to have been part of this household’s possessions at the time of the Per-sian sack, together with a set of black-figure skyphoi, the eye cup(s?) and other black-figure kylix fragments derive from a lower level, and Lynch suggests that they were discarded at some point earlier than 480 B.C.E. Noting the general paucity of black-figure stemmed cups in the Persian destruction deposits of the Agora, Lynch proposes that they had fallen out of fashion in Athenian households by that time, with red-figure cups favored instead for sympotic ware, and black-figure skyphoi favored for other occasions or even daily use.

Only 10 certain eye cup fragments have been pub-lished from elsewhere in the Athenian Agora, nearly all from fill contexts or otherwise scattered finds. All but one is black-figure.34 The notable exception is a red-figure lip and bowl fragment attributed to Oltos, likely from a bilingual Type A cup, although it could have been entirely red-figure.35 With an estimated diameter of 31 cm, this cup is unusual among eye cups found in Athens for its size as well as its technique. Among black-figure eye cup fragments from the Agora, the earliest dates from ca. 540–530 B.C.E., quite early for the Athe-nian examples.36 Most of the Type A or stemless Type C eye cups date from the late sixth or early fifth century, once again late in the series. The Leafless Group and others of their kind are well represented. Two of these stemless cups, found in the same well (G15:1), feature similar decoration of figures reclining between eyes; although their find context is inconclusive, it is possible that they came from a Late Archaic house and were used in communal drinking.37 One (inv. no. P1152)

34 Other black-figure examples in the Agora Museum col-lection include Type A and sub-A cups (all catalogued in Moore and Philippides 1986): inv. nos. P6079 (306–7, cat. no. 1753), P13039 (307, cat. no. 1754), P13747 (307, cat. no. 1755), P5230 (307, cat. no. 1756). They also include stemless cups: inv. nos. P3437 (310, cat. no. 1781), P5894 (310, cat. no. 1782), P1152 (310, cat. no. 1783), P1153 (310, cat. no. 1784).

35 Athens, Agora Museum, inv. no. P9414 (Moore 1997, 316, cat. no. 1400, pl. 129).

36 Athens, Agora Museum, inv. no. P6079 (supra n. 34). The fragment includes a woman’s bust in profile; the decora-tion must be similar to examples with busts between the eyes found in Etruria, which are discussed later in this article.

37 Athens, Agora Museum, inv. nos. P1152, P1153 (supra n. 34). Well G15:1 seems to have been closed ca. 500 B.C.E. and contained a lot of pottery, especially skyphoi and lekythoi. Lynch’s (2011) study of one household’s pottery shows that Athenian homeowners consciously chose sympotic-themed

fig. 5. Attic hydria by the A.D. Painter, from Vulci. London, British Museum, inv. no. B342 (© Trustees of the British Museum).



has a reconstructed diameter of 18.8 cm, and the other (inv. no. P1153) is 17.5 cm, so that, as with the Well J2:4 fragment, a masking/sympotic interpretation is not implausible here, even though households in the vicinity of the Agora are thought to have been work-ing or middle class rather than elite and aristocratic. Admittedly, because we are relying on Well J2:4 and other Agora deposits thought to contain domestic de-bris, our evidence for eye cups in Athenian houses (or the lack thereof) may be skewed; the Athenians living here were likely not participating in symposia at the time of the earliest eye cups, whereas after the advent of democracy in the last decade of the sixth century, the symposion as a form of communal drinking was adopted by a wider range of social groups.38 Perhaps more early eye cups remain to be discovered in other ancient Athenian neighborhoods, which would alter the current contextual picture considerably and mesh better with the masking/sympotic interpretations fa-vored by many scholars.

Where eye cups are less common, lekythoi with eyes represent the largest group of eye vessels in the Athe-nian Agora, as well as in the Kerameikos cemetery. Of the 21 published black-figure eye lekythoi in the Agora, 14 come from a single deposit, the Stoa Gutter Well (Q12:3), which is believed to include Persian de-struction debris. Another four were found in the Rect-angular Rock-Cut Shaft (G6:3), also thought to contain destruction debris.39 Most of the lekythoi are attributed

imagery for their banqueting cups, although none in her group shows reclining figures.

38 Lynch (2011) makes the broader point that the house-hold represented in Well J2:4 is further evidence for the diffu-sion of the symposion to other social classes at this time.

39 See Vanderpool (1946) for the Rectangular Rock-Cut Shaft and Roberts (1986) for the Stoa Gutter Well. One of the

to a single group of painters, the Kalinderu Group; the patterns of deposit in the Stoa Gutter Well and Rect-angular Rock-Cut Shaft have led to the suggestion that pottery sales shops were nearby.40 If this was the case, then these lekythoi were likely intended for graves in the Kerameikos or for local domestic use rather than export abroad.41 Eight lekythoi with eyes have been published from the Kerameikos excavations, all black-figure and from the late sixth and early fifth centuries, and no eye cups are documented from graves there. These lekythoi recall examples from Late Archaic graves at other Greek sites, such as Megara Hyblaea, Gela, Tanagra, Rhitsona, Camiros, and Ialysos.42

skyphoi (Athens, Agora Museum, inv. no. P2614) also comes from the Rectangular Rock-Cut Shaft. Shear (1993) provides analyses of these two deposits as part of his larger discussion of Persian destruction debris.

40 Lynch 2011, 139 (with further references). Another four of the lekythoi with eyes are attributed to the Cock Group, and four to the Class of Athens 581. Three of the skyphoi have been attributed to the CHC Group. All are of rather summary quality.

41 Lynch (2011, 139–40) discusses the place of lekythoi in Athenian houses (specifically referencing the finds in Well J2:4) and suggests that they were appropriate as grave offer-ings precisely because of their domestic use.

42 For the Kerameikos lekythoi, see BAPD, nos. 298, 299, 9022421, 9022611, 9022641, 9022656, 9022892, 9023029 (with references). In addition to eye lekythoi found at Gela and Megara Hyblaea, cf. also a black-figure eye lekythos with eye decoration from the Pezzino necropolis of Agrigento (Museo Archeologico Regionale, inv. no. AG22623 [BAPD, no. 31794]). In contrast to the eye lekythoi of Greek sites, very few have been discovered in Etruria, otherwise the most im-portant market for eye vessels, as discussed later in this article; a rare exception comes from Tomb SG 06 in the Crocifisso del Tufo necropolis of Orvieto (Orvieto, Museo Civico, inv. no. B1391 [Bruschetti 2012, 79, cat. no. 2, pl. 28e]). See Bruschetti (2012, 78–81) for finds from the tomb as a whole.

table 1. Distribution of eye vessels in Vulci and Athens (by vase shape).

Vase Shape Vulci (n=214) Athens (n=107)

Amphora 16 0

Cup (black-figure) 120 64 (9 Agora, 55 Acropolis)

Cup (bilingual) 26 1 Agora

Cup (red-figure) 12 2 Acropolis

Hydria 4 0

Kyathos 34 0

Lekythos 0 34 (including 8 Kerameikos, 21 Agora)

Skyphos 0 6 (including 1 Acropolis, 4 Agora)

Other 2 0



Most of the Kerameikos examples, like the majority of pottery in Athenian graves, were included in small assemblages of only a few objects, and most were ac-companied by other lekythoi that do not include eyes. An interesting exception is an apparent woman’s grave from ca. 510–500 B.C.E. with a relatively large assem-blage, perhaps belonging to a young woman who had died before marriage. An eye lekythos with a figure of a dancing woman or maenad was joined by six other black-figure lekythoi, two black-figure pyxides (one with scenes of women spinning, the other with scenes of Peleus and Thetis, the judgment of Paris, and the birth of Athena), a fragmentary alabastron, a ceramic phiale, and a bronze mirror.43

Based on the current corpus, the most important context for eye cups in Athens is the Athenian Acrop-olis, with at least 55 black-figure fragments and two red-figure.44 Like most of the hundreds of Acropolis ce-ramic fragments, the majority cannot be confirmed as coming from a specific deposit; therefore, it is unclear whether they had been in the sanctuary before the Per-sian sack of 480 B.C.E. or were brought up from the lower city in building fill during post-Persian building projects.45 Three of the black-figure cups, however, do have a secure context from a deposit associated with the construction of the (pre-)Parthenon podium in the early 480s and so must have been votive offerings and/or used in rituals (e.g., libations, dining) before

43 Künze-Gotte et al. 1999, 66–7, cat. no. 242 (Tomb 35 HTR 38 II), pls. 39.1–4, 40.1–5, 41.1–6. Cf. Paleothodoros (2012b, esp. 21–2) on the intentionality of pottery placed in women’s graves in the Kerameikos.

44 The following are catalogued as black-figure eye cups in Graef and Langlotz 1909–1933 and/or in ABV: Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. nos. 1.1476 (BAPD, no. 340394), 1.1532 (BAPD, no. 302612), 1.1533–1535, 1.1536a–e (BAPD, no. 32162), 1.1537, 1.1538a–e (BAPD, no. 32440), 1.1539–1546, 1.1547 (BAPD, no. 32439), 1.1548–1550, 1.1551 (BAPD, no. 32438), 1.1552–1553, 1.1554 (BAPD, no. 306486), 1.1555–1.1560, 1.1730 (BAPD, no. 32400), 1.1731–1733, 1.1734 (BAPD, no. 32399), 1.1735–1739, 1.2017 (BAPD, no. 32349), 1.2018–2023, 1.2065 (BAPD, no. 331804), 1.2066–2069, 1.2046–2048 (BAPD, nos. 331811–13). Those catalogued as red-figure are an eye cup by the Colmar Painter (Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. no. 2.244 [ARV 2, 51, no. 207; 356, no. 57; BAPD, no. 200417]) and what is probably a palmette eye cup (Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. no. 2.42 [ARV 2, 49, no. 185, 168, no. 1]).

45 For the problem of the different deposits, see, e.g., Stew-art 2008; Pala 2012, 39–55 (both with further references). Stewart (2008) suggests that only one of the northern depos-its is true Perserschutt, consisting of material from the Acropo-lis buried after the sack. Other deposits seem associated with construction either before the sack or after it during reno-vations. For the problems associated with studying sanctuary pottery generally, including determining its function there, see Stissi 2003.

that time.46 All three are early fifth-century products of the Leafless Group—a workshop already mentioned for eye cups in the Agora—and each features a horse-man between the eyes. Pala and others have noted the iconographic relevance of many Acropolis ves-sels to the cult of Athena or other deities worshiped at the sanctuary; given Athena’s association with war, we may speculate whether the three cups with horse-men were conscious choices by their dedicators for their imagery.47 Another fragmentary eye cup found on the Acropolis depicts Athena herself amid the Gi-gantomachy.48 The presence and use of eye cups on the Acropolis recall examples from other Greek sanc-tuaries—similarly black-figure, approximately average-sized, and late in the series—such as the Sanctuaries of Zeus at Olympia, Aphaia at Aegina, Demeter and Kore at Cyrene, Artemis at Thasos, and Hera at Samos.49 Red-figure eye cups are rare at Greek sanctuaries, aside from the minimal Acropolis fragments and an-other single fragment from the Argive Heraion that probably derives from an eye cup.50

All the present evidence from Athens together sug-gests that black-figure eye cups were more important to the home market late in their history of production, while bilingual and red-figure eye cups were nearly nonexistent there.51 Average-sized or smaller cups

46 As noted in Stewart 2008, 401. Athens, Acropolis Muse-um, inv. nos. 1.2046 (ABV, 635, no. 43; BAPD, no. 331811), 1.2047 (ABV, 635, no. 45; BAPD, no. 331813), 1.2048 (ABV, 635, no. 45; BAPD, no. 331813). All date to ca. 500–490 B.C.E. and come from an embankment deposit south of the Parthe-non. For cups and other vessels perhaps used for libations/rituals as well as offerings on the Acropolis, see Pala 2012, 61–8, 85–9.

47 Pala 2012. See also Lynch (2011, 175 n. 17), who observes an absence of elaborate mythological scenes in the Agora pot-tery but their presence in the Acropolis pottery.

48 Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. no. 1.1538 (BAPD, no. 32440; Graef and Langlotz 1909–1933, 1:pl. 81.1538a–e).

49 Olympia (in Olympia Museum): cup fragments with a winged woman between eyes, inv. no. K11046A-B (BAPD, no. 23159; Burow et al. 2000, 222, cat. no. 52, pl. 72.52); cup fragments with satyr, inv. no. K11133A-F (BAPD, no. 23160; Burow et al. 2000, 222, cat. no. 53, pl. 72.53). Aegina (Ar-chaeological Museum of Aegina): cup fragment, inv. no. UF17 (BAPD, no. 15929). Cyrene (Archaeological Museum): cup fragments with nose and eyes, inv. no. 277.6 (BAPD, no. 28673). Thasos (in Archaeological Museum of Thasos): cup fragment, inv. no. 59.824 (BAPD, no. 8994); fragmentary cup, inv. nos. 59.1213, 1041, 1490, 840, 1004, 790 (BAPD, no. 8995); cup fragment (BAPD, no. 8890). Samos (in Archaeological Museum of Vathy): cup fragments, inv. no. K1463 (BAPD, no. 23547); cup fragment, inv. no. K970 (BAPD, no. 23554); cup fragment, now lost, inv. no. K974 (BAPD, no. 23557).

50 Attributed to Epiktetos, the fragment is now in the Na-tional Archaeological Museum of Athens (ARV 2, 71, no. 5; BAPD, no. 200458; Paleothodoros 2004a, 145, cat. no. 10).

51 Cf. Paleothodoros (2007a), who observes the paucity of



were favored over larger examples, and the Leafless Group’s workshop seems to have been particularly ac-tive in producing eye cups for Athenian consumption. The export market to the east and west, meanwhile, yields a different picture and seems to have provided workshops and traders with greater opportunities for innovation and profit with these vessels. The inspira-tion for Attic eye cups may have even come from the east. Earlier in the Archaic period, East Greek paint-ers had produced so-called eye bowls, which were concentrated in the eastern Mediterranean and dis-appeared around the mid sixth century.52 It may not be a coincidence that the Greek emporion of Naukratis in Egypt, the destination of some of these earlier eye bowls, also received early and later examples of Athe-nian eye cups, including a bilingual eye cup by Oltos.53 Based on the current evidence, Naukratis was one of the first sites to import Athenian eye cups, albeit in small numbers; a black-figure eye cup attributed to the circle of the Lysippides Painter was discovered in the Sanctuary of Apollo and preserves part of an inscrip-tion with the god’s name.54

Elsewhere in the east, occasional Athenian eye cups have been excavated at such Greek sites as Camiros and Ialysos on Rhodes, the emporion of Al Mina in Syria, and Elaious and Old Smyrna in Turkey.55 Eye cups have also been found at non-Greek sites such as Gordion, Daskyleion, Sardis, and Xanthos; many of these come from domestic contexts, which raises questions about their use and meaning for non-Greek banqueters

early red-figure and bilingual vases in Athens and speculates on a connection to the Etruscan market.

52 On eye bowls (e.g., the “stacked” example from Naukra-tis [London, British Museum, inv. no. 1888.6-1.392]), see Ferrari 1986, 12–14. For the possible inspiration to Athenian eye cups and other eye vessels, see Jackson 1976, 57–71.

53 Venit (1982, 432–34) catalogues six Attic eye cups found at Naukratis, to which four more black-figure examples may be added (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. nos. G700, G1053, G1097, G1113). For bilingual eye cups by Oltos (Lon-don, British Museum, inv. no. 1900.2–14.3), see ARV 2, 43, no. 69; BAPD, no. 200275; Venit 1982, 434, cat. no. B700.

54 London, British Museum, inv. no. 86.4-1.828 (Venit 1982, 432, cat. no. B695).

55 For a red-figure fragment from either a bilingual or fully red-figure eye cup from Al Mina (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. no. 1954.232), see ARV 2, 47, no. 147. For ex-amples from Old Smyrna, see Tuna-Nörling 1995, 27–9, cat. nos. 109–18 (with cat. nos. 113–19 belonging to the Leafless Group). The eye cups found in tombs at Camiros and Ialysos are black-figure and late in the series. De la Genière (2003, 34–5) observes that the presence of cups at Rhodian tombs differs from that at most Greek tombs elsewhere; in fact, most of the cups were not placed in the tombs themselves but just outside them, usually with an amphora or another storage vessel. They may have been used in rituals for the closing of the tomb rather than being intended for the deceased.

in the east.56 With the exception of those found at Naukratis, most Attic eye cups discovered in the east-ern Mediterranean are black-figure, date from the late sixth or early fifth century, and are average-sized in diameter, similar to the types found in Athens itself. The Leafless Group, which sent a large quantity of its products eastward in addition to producing for the home market, is the workshop most frequently rep-resented.57 Later examples of black-figure Athenian eye cups can also be found at coastal Black Sea sites, such as Olbia, showing the increased opening of this market at the advent of the fifth century.

Whereas the home and eastern markets received eye cups mostly later in the production series, current dis-tribution data show that the western market—Etruria, South Italy and Sicily, and points beyond—was signifi-cant for Athenian workshops from the beginning. At-testation of the depth and complexity of the western trade can be found in the recovered cargo of the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck: a late sixth-century merchant ves-sel, likely Greek although perhaps Etruscan, en route to the Greek city of Massalia (Marseilles) when it foun-dered off the French coast.58 In contrast to other ship-wrecks of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., the Pointe Lequin 1A wreck is distinguished by the high propor-tion of Greek fine ware on board, both Athenian and from other sources, comprising most of the surviving cargo.59 Cups of various kinds make up the majority of the transported pottery, with more than 700 Athenian

56 E.g., for eye cups from the acropolis at Xanthos (all black-figure cups by the Leafless Group), see BAPD, nos. 15366, 15367, 15368, 306937, 306938, 306940, 306941, 306942 (with references). From the acropolis at Sardis come two cups now held in the Archeological Museum of Manisa: inv. nos. P58.559.381 (BAPD, no. 29257; Schaeffer et al. 1997, 85, cat. no. Att 68, pl. 36.68), P96.53.10358 (BAPD, no. 29258, Schaef-fer et al. 1997, 85–6, cat. no. Att 69, pl. 36.69). From a tomb at Sardis comes an eye cup fragment now held in the Metropoli-tan Museum of Art in New York (inv. no. 26.199.103).

57 Tuna-Nörling (1995, 146, fig. 31) provides a table of ware attributed to the Leafless Group (eye cups and other-wise) and counts 122 pieces (47.1% of her total) going to East Greece, 26 pieces (10% of her total) going to Etruria, and 43 (16.6% of her total) staying in Athens. Cf. Scheffer (1988) for the distribution patterns of the Leafless Group.

58 Long et al. 1992; Krotscheck 2008. The mostly Greek car-go of the Pointe Lequin 1A ship does not necessarily imply a Greek crew, merchant/trader (emporos), and/or ship-owner (naukleros); cf. Dietler 2010, 141.

59 See comparison with other shipwrecks in Krotscheck 2008, 75–88. Krotscheck notes that of the ca. 5 tons of surviv-ing cargo from the Pointe Lequin 1A ship, ca. 94% was fine ware, and ca. 5% were amphoras. The ship may, however, have originally held as much as 20 tons of cargo given the size of the rudder; it is impossible to know the nature of the lost car-go, if it existed (Krotscheck 2008, 74–5). Krotscheck observes that regardless of any lost cargo, the amount of fine ware still provides significant evidence of directed and profitable trade.



black-figure cups among them; this is consistent with a larger pattern in the western Mediterranean in which drinking cups dominate Athenian exports to both Greek and non-Greek populations compared with oth-er shapes.60 Those on the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck were likely meant for Greek customers in Massalia as well as non-Greek customers at indigenous sites in the Rhône Basin and farther west.61 Among the Athenian kylikes were 144 Type A eye cups, of which the bulk have been preliminarily attributed to the Nikosthenic workshop and to the 520s B.C.E.62 Others are said to be from the group of so-called Courting Cups, which similarly can be dated to the later 520s and possibly the early teens.63 Based on the few published examples, a variety of subjects representing the full breadth of eye cups are featured: Dionysian scenes, combat scenes, mythological scenes including images of Herakles and Theseus, and courting scenes.64

The Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck has many impli-cations for our understanding of the export trade in Athenian vases, at least as it operated in the western Mediterranean in the late sixth century B.C.E.65 First, vases could be purchased in batches by traders and shipped together, sometimes in large batches. Second, for a trader to invest in such large numbers of, for ex-ample, Type A eye cups as represented in the Pointe Lequin 1A cargo, he must have had knowledge of the demand where he was going; a trader would not take a chance on failing to sell a substantial inventory of one type of vase.66 This implies a level of directed or targeted trade that in the past has often been under-

60 For the cargo, see Long et al.1992; Krotscheck 2008, esp. 67–71. For the importance of drinking cups among Athenian exports west, see Walsh 2014, 125–29, 158–61. For a discus-sion of feasting, see Walsh 2014, 175–77 (with further refer-ences—e.g., to Dietler 2010). The figured Athenian vessels, however, represented only ca. one-third of the fine ware cargo on the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck, with fragments of at least 1,500 so-called Ionian B2 cups making up the bulk (Krots-check 2008, 70). Based on chemical analysis of the B2 cups, Krotscheck concludes they were most likely made somewhere in Italy.

61 Dietler 2010, 135.62 Long et al. 1992, 214 (citing Villard, pers. comm.); Krots-

check 2008, 70. Other Attic cups aboard included some Little Master cups and more than 200 Cassel cups.

63 See Jordan (1988, 196–210) for the general series of Courting Cups with eyes.

64 Only 12 of the Attic eye cups are published in Long et al. 1992, 211–16, figs. 19–31 (BAPD, nos. 23606, 43396–99, 43401–8).

65 As stressed by Krotscheck (2008) and noted in Langridge- Noti 2013, 64; Williams 2013, 52 n. 80. Krotscheck’s most detailed analyses focus on the so-called Ionian B2 cups, but many of her conclusions about the trade in these cups can be extended to Attic eye cups as well.

66 Cf. Krotscheck 2008, 90.

estimated.67 The prevalence of fine ware (both figured and undecorated) on the Pointe Lequin 1A ship fur-ther suggests that profit was anticipated, and although pottery could and often did travel on ships with other cargo in various proportions, it was not merely a space filler.68 Characterizing Athenian vases as luxury items of considerable economic value abroad stretches the evidence—the alternative term “semi-luxury,” intro-duced by Foxhall, has been advocated in some recent scholarship—but clearly these were items of some value, economic or otherwise, to the customers who wanted them.69 For many non-Greeks in the western Mediterranean—for example, in Gaul—the value of eye cups or other drinking vessels seems to have been for the shape, although not at Greek-style symposia, given that kraters were not imported in any substantial numbers. One can compare, for instance, the frag-mentary black-figure eye cups excavated at habitation areas at Ensérune in Languedoc, all average-sized in diameter and thus ideal for feasting.70

The particular case of the eye cups in the Pointe Lequin 1A cargo not only highlights the role of the trader but also brings the producer strongly into the equation. Given that the majority have been at least preliminarily attributed to a single workshop, that

67 But it is increasingly advocated in discussions of the pot-tery trade, including in Krotscheck 2008; Langridge-Noti 2013; Williams 2013. For targeted trade in the western Medi-terranean specifically, see, e.g., Dietler 2010, 132; Walsh 2014. For the critical role of traders, see, e.g., de la Genière 2003; Dietler 2010, 131–43; Williams 2013; Langridge-Noti 2014. I thank E. Langridge-Noti for sharing a copy of her article with me in advance of publication.

68 This evidence supports the ideas in Boardman 1988; contra, e.g., Gill 1991 (both articles predate this shipwreck’s publication). Cf. Krotscheck (2008, 169–71), who notes “this pottery was being exported neither as rare artworks nor as an afterthought to some other cargo, but for its own value” (169).

69 The term “semi-luxury,” used by Foxhall (1998, 302, 307), is advocated for Athenian pottery—e.g., in Krotscheck 1998, 92; Williams 2013, 54. Langridge-Noti (2013, 64) sug-gests that “the Attic import should perhaps be seen as an exot-ic, although not necessarily luxurious, alternative to the local form.”

70 Nissan-lez-Ensérune, Musée National d’Ensérune, inv. nos. S3 (BAPD, no. 22536), S5 (BAPD, no. 22470), S15 (BAPD, no. 22534), S32 (BAPD, no. 22467), S33 (BAPD, no. 22464), S36 (BAPD, no. 22535), S63 (BAPD, no. 22557), S67 (BAPD, no. 22558). All are discussed in the CVA volume for the Mu-sée National d’Ensérune (France 37). As Jully (1978, 354–55) notes, although black-figure Attic vases are relatively rare at the site, cups make up about half of all Attic imports found in the habitation areas of Ensérune (black-figure, red-figure, and black-glazed). See Dietler (2010, 206–22) and Walsh (2014, 175–77) for drinking customs among the indigenous peoples of Gaul, and Osborne (2007a, 87) and Walsh (2014, 161–63) on the absence of kraters.



associated with the potter Nikosthenes, it is evident that the workshop must have known—presumably from a trader—that large quantities of these cups were desired.71 It seems unlikely that Nikosthenes’ er-gasterion happened to have 144 black-figure eye cups on the shelves when a trader came to call, without some form of insider knowledge or specific com-mission. That black-figure Type A eye cups from the Nikosthenic workshop also went elsewhere—to Etru-ria, as is discussed later—shows that the notion of “directed trade” does not mean “exclusive trade,” at least not in this instance. Clearly, the Athenian pottery trade as a whole was far from random, and consider-able agency should be granted to producers, traders, and, as is demonstrated later in this article, consumers. This model contrasts with past assumptions that any or all three of these groups behaved in a haphazard fashion, lacking strategy or informed choice.

While the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck and other finds of eye cups in the western Mediterranean show that these vases were sent to Gaul and populations there, the most influential and presumably most profitable market for Athenian producers of eye ves-sels—not only in the west, but in the entire Mediter-ranean Basin—was in southern Etruria and environs (see tables 1, 2). Eye vessels also appear at Etruscan sites in northern Italy (e.g., Bologna, Adria, Spina) and Campania (e.g., Capua, Nola) but in fewer num-bers and often later in date. Predictably, most eye ves-sels discovered in Etruria come from tombs, although fragmentary eye cups have also been found in sanc-tuaries such as the Ara della Regina at Tarquinia, the Belvedere sanctuary at Orvieto, the sanctuary at Cam-po della Fiera just outside Orvieto, and the Graeco- Etruscan sanctuary at Tarquinia’s port, Gravisca.72 While Etruscan settlements are poorly excavated and

71 Oakley (1992) provides an important perspective on Athenian workshops in the discussion of a late fifth-century workshop deposit with red-figure pottery, mainly bell kraters. Oakley concludes that the deposit, which was perhaps the re-mains of a single kiln firing, “indicates that in some workshops painters produced a number of vases with similar scenes and details in one sitting, resulting in many of the replicas that we have today” (Oakley 1992, 203).

72 Reusser 2002, 2:72–4 (Belvedere at Orvieto), 83–4 (Ara della Regina) (with further references). Gravisca and Cam-po di Fiera are discussed later in this article. Black-figure Attic eye cup fragments have likewise been discovered in the sixth-century levels of the Sanctuary of Apollo in Pompeii (thought to have been under Etruscan influence at that time, if not control) and the Sant’Omobono sanctuary in Rome (certainly under Etruscan control). These have not been well published but are mentioned in Reusser 2002, 2:93–100. One of the Sant’Omobono eye cups (unattributed) is currently displayed in the Musei Capitolini in Rome (inv. no. 17418 [BAPD, no. 3732]).

understood, fragments of Athenian eye cups have turned up in some houses—for example, at Regisvilla near Vulci and at the northern site of Marzabotto.73 Ancient repairs in some eye cups from tombs, includ-ing the Exekias kylix (see fig. 1), may indicate display or use in homes before deposition.74

It would be easy to cite accidents of survival for these statistics, or else typical trade patterns of the sixth cen-tury B.C.E., given that exports to Etruria were critical for many Athenian workshops producing many types of vases. Confirmation of the particular significance of eye vessels to the Etruscans, however, can be found not only in Athenian production for this market but also in production elsewhere. The Chalcidian black-figure eye cups contemporary with black-figure Athe-nian examples seem to have been made not in Euboea, as was previously assumed because of the Chalcidian inscriptions, but rather in South Italy, perhaps in Rhe-gion, largely if not exclusively for export northward to Etruria and environs.75 Nearly all provenanced ex-amples come from Etruscan sites (see table 2), the largest number from Cerveteri (ca. 30 cups), with Vulci in second place (ca. eight cups).76 Only two eye cups, both from Rhegion, are counted among known Chalcidian vases with findspots in Magna Graecia, and none comes from mainland Greece. It seems that South Italian workshops targeted Etruscan (and Faliscan) customers with these cups, and it seems that Attic workshops responded with their own Chalcidiz-ing cups, which, as noted earlier, echo aspects of the

73 Reusser 2002, 2:53–5 (with further references). For frag-mentary eye cups from a house in Marzabotto, see Brizzolara and Baldoni 2010a, 19, cat. no. 6; 22, cat. no. 19.

74 E.g., the bilingual eye cup discussed by Connor (1996), formerly in a Melbourne private collection (for the bronze clamp repair, see pp. 367–68). Scholars have noted that bronze seems to have been preferred to lead for repairs in Etruria; this appears to be confirmed by Rotroff’s (2011, 121 [with references to other scholarship]) observations of repairs to pottery found in the Athenian Agora, all made in lead. If true, then this cup and others with bronze repairs were not mended in Athens before shipment to Italy, al-though they were possibly damaged in transit and repaired before purchase. I thank S. Rotroff for sharing a copy of her article on the repaired ceramics from the Agora.

75 For Chalcidian cups, see Boehlau 1900 (positing an Io-nian origin); Rumpf 1927 (Euboean origin); and Iozzo 1994 (South Italian origin). The suggestion of Rhegion for their production derives from the large number of Chalcidian vas-es found in this area compared with other places, including in both sanctuary and funerary contexts.

76 See the list of Chalcidian eye cups in Rumpf 1927, 35–9. Iozzo (1994) divides vessels by findspot, including Chalcidian vases found at Cerveteri (177–84) and Vulci (189–93). Other Chalcidian eye cups were found at Falerii/Civita Castellana (ca. three examples), Orvieto (four examples), and Pyrgi (one cup).



table 2. Distribution of Athenian and so-called Chalcidian eye vessels in southern Etruria and environs.

Site No. of Athenian eye vessels (all shapes) No. of so-called Chalcidian eye vessels (all shapes)

Vulci 214 8

Falerii 19 3

Orvieto 31 4

Cerveteri 15 (or 70?) 30

Tarquinia 10 0

former’s shape and decoration (see fig. 3). The potter Nikosthenes has been suggested as the originator of the Athenian version. Tosto noted that Nikosthenes’ signed Chalcidizing cup in the Ménil collection “is the sole, well-preserved example that barely differs from some Chalcidian cups and therefore reflects firsthand knowledge of them.”77 This conclusion would be con-sistent with the attribution of other vase types to the Nikosthenic workshop that seem to have been primar-ily developed for the Etruscan market, such as kyathoi and the so-called Nikosthenic amphoras.78 It is worth noting once more the prevalence of eyes-and-nose decoration on both Chalcidian and Chalcidizing eye cups sent to Etruria, the very decorative scheme that seems to have inspired the masking interpretations discussed previously; these kylikes clearly have no re-lation to the Athenian symposion and were intended for a different audience, with perhaps a different ap-preciation of that imagery.79

The presence of both Athenian and Chalcidian vases with eye decoration may have inspired Etruscan workshops to adopt the eye motif on their own black-figure vases, verifying once more the importance of this iconography in local contexts. Etruscan work-shops, however, seem to have felt it unnecessary to produce their own eye cups, perhaps because of the

77 Tosto 1999, 144; cf. Boardman 1974, 107–8; Jordan 1988, 326–28 (the latter is more cautious about invention by the Nikosthenic workshop but acknowledges a likely economic reason for Attic workshops creating their own versions). For this cup, see supra n. 16.

78 E.g., the so-called Nikosthenic amphoras that seem to have been primarily produced for customers at Cerveteri. For this shape, see Eisman 1974; Tosto 1999; von Mehren 2001. For kyathoi, see Eisman 1971, 1975. Mastoids (Malagardis 1997) and so-called Nikosthenic pyxides (Lyons 2009) are other shapes suggested to have had a primarily although not exclusively Etruscan clientele.

79 Among Chalcidizing cups with the nose-and-eyes scheme and known provenance, the latter a small proportion of the whole, only one has a known Greek findspot, Brauron; the cup is now in the Athens National Museum (BAPD, no. 351001; Paralipomena 93).

imported versions readily available.80 Instead, eyes ap-pear on amphoras, hydriae, and kyathoi, with exam-ples attributed to the Micali Painter and his associates as well as to the so-called Ivy-Leaf Group.81 These had a limited distribution in southern and central Etru-ria, with the center of production suspected to be at Vulci.82 Most lack documented findspots, but the 1998 discovery of the so-called Tomba dei Vasi del Pittore di Micali in Vulci’s Osteria necropolis (Tomb A2/1998) places an Etruscan eye vessel into context. The woman in this tomba a cassone—a uniquely Vulcian form of chamber tomb—was buried with a lidded amphora by the Micali Painter featuring pairs of roaring lions on the body and pairs of eyes on the shoulder (fig. 6).83 It was joined by an array of Etruscan and Attic vases, Etruscan bronze vessels, and a bronze mirror.84

80 Paleothodoros (2010, 2011) stresses Etruscan black- figure vases as supplements to rather than substitutes for imported Athenian pottery, both in terms of shape and im-agery. He notes that rather than producing kylikes in large numbers, Etruscan black-figure painters during the late sixth and early fifth centuries instead privileged chalices, kyathoi, and kantharoi, the “local” forms of drinking vessels (Paleo- thodoros 2010, 4; 2011, 49–50 [in the latter publication he notes that “kylikes appear in three distinct moments” among Etruscan workshops]). After the heyday of Attic imports to southern Etruria had passed, Etruscan workshops did pro-duce red-figure kylikes in greater numbers, perhaps in re-sponse to continued demand and diminished supply.

81 For the Micali Painter, see, e.g., Scheffer 1979; Spivey and Rasmussen 1986; Spivey 1987, 1988; Rizzo 1988; Strandberg Olofsson 1996. For the Ivy Painter and Ivy-Leaf Group, see Drukker 1986; Werner 2005.

82 Rizzo (1988, 85) notes that of the 86 total vases attributed to the Micali Painter at that time with known provenance (not just those with eyes), 56 came from the necropolis at Vulci. Others were found in smaller numbers at various sites around southern Etruria, including Chiusi, Orvieto, Bisenzio, Tar-quinia, and Cerveteri. See Spivey (1987, 72–6) for distribu-tion generally.

83 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. nos. 131311, 131312 (Moretti Sgubini 2001, 226–27, pl. 15).

84 Moretti Sgubini 2001, 220–35; Reusser 2003, 172–74; Pa-leothodoros 2009, 48–51.



Another amphora attributed to the Micali Painter with eye decoration on the shoulder, discovered at Tarquinia in the late 19th century, seems to have been used as an ossuary in a tomba a buca, or pit tomb; satyrs dance and play auloi in the main scenes on its body.85 The clear influence of Athenian eye cups as a model, meanwhile, can be seen on yet another amphora at-tributed to the painter, originally from Vulci and un-fortunately destroyed in World War II, where pairs of eyes occupied most of the body and a large, frontal Gorgon face appeared under a handle.86

The frequent mention of Vulci thus far in this pa-per has hinted at this site’s importance for eye vessels, whether of Athenian, Chalcidian, or Etruscan manu-facture, a suspicion that is supported by the distribu-tion data (see table 1). That more than 200 Athenian vessels with eyes were found at Vulci—more than 75% of them cups—is on the one hand not surprising, given that an estimated 3,000 Athenian vases were unearthed in the early 19th-century Bonaparte excavations, and material continues to be discovered there.87 On the other hand, the proportion seems higher than mere coincidence, especially considering that many unprov-enanced eye vessels today in Munich, London, Paris, Rome, and Orvieto (those from Orvieto acquired from the Princess of Canino in the 1860s) have a good chance of coming from Vulci. Add to this Chalcidian eye cups with documented Vulcian provenance and local ceramic workshops producing eye vessels, and it is clear that Vulci represented a major market for vases with eye decoration.

Examination of the Athenian eye vessels from Vulci, including the 158 eye cups of the current cor-pus, suggests an atmosphere of both innovation and competition as painters and workshops sought to satisfy, expand, and keep their Etruscan clientele. Black-figure, bilingual, and red-figure eye cups are all featured, in a span of time that ranges from their earliest production in the 530s B.C.E. until their last hurrah in the early fifth century. Already this marks a difference from the surviving corpus from Athens itself, which as we have seen is concentrated primarily on black-figure and examples from later in the series.

85 Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense, inv. no. RC6884 (Ghirardini 1882, 212–14; Palmieri 2011, 92–3).

86 Formerly inv. no. 861/J1054 in the Staatliche Antiken-sammlungen in Munich, with only three fragments surviv-ing, according to Spivey 1987, 20, cat. no. 117. All the original photograph negatives were likewise destroyed, so that only one published image remains (Sieveking and Hackl 1912, pl. 36, 113, cat. no. 861).

87 For the so-called Bonaparte excavations at Vulci/Cani-no, see e.g., Buranelli 1995; Nørskov 2009 (with earlier references).

Even without trying to untangle all the relationships between the potters and painters attested in the Vul-cian corpus, we can see that certain patterns sugges-tive of directed production and/or trade present themselves. The Nikosthenic workshop, already noted for its production and possibly invention of the Chal-cidizing form for Attic eye cups, is amply represented at Vulci—not only by Chalcidizing cups, but also by so-called Nikosthenic amphoras with eyes as decora-tion and by kyathoi with eyes. Both these latter forms, like the Chalcidizing cups, are thought to have origi-nated in this workshop, and both are frequently cited as examples of targeted production to the Etruscan market. Some of the other, non-Chalcidizing eye cups at Vulci are signed by Nikosthenes as potter, includ-ing a black-figure Type A cup and bilingual Type A cup, both in the Louvre.88 I have already noted the apparent inclusion of many Nikosthenic eye cups in the cargo of the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck; it seems

88 On the black-figure cup signed “Nikosthenes epoisen,” diam. 33.6 cm (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. F122), see ABV, 231, no. 6; BAPD, no. 301277; Beazley Addenda 2 59; Para-lipomena 108; Tosto 1999, 232, cat. no. 168. On the bilingual cup also signed “Nikosthenes epoisen,” diam. 31 cm (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. F125), see ARV 2, 41, no. 26; 161, no. 1; BAPD, no. 200234; Beazley Addenda 2 58.

fig. 6. Etruscan amphora by the Micali Painter, from Vul-ci. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131311 (© Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).



that Nikosthenes had detailed knowledge of the mar-ket abroad and worked closely with traders going west. Another workshop or group of potters/painters whose products recur at Vulci—and who may or may not have had ties to the Nikosthenic workshop—is the Krokotos Group (including the Group of Walters 48.42), with eight black-figure Type A cups in the corpus.89 The apparent preference of this group for the Italian mar-ket with its production of eye cups was already noted by Ure in her 1955 article on the workshop.90 Not all the potters and painters documented in the Vulcian sample had special ties to the Etruscan market, but the overall picture suggests knowledge among Kerameikos workshops of the demand for eye vessels abroad and knowledge among traders on how best to capitalize on this demand.

The Vulcian eye cup corpus is further significant for its inclusion of unusual and innovative features—for instance, oversized kylikes (which are discussed later in this article), as well as the use of the bilingual and red-figure techniques (cf. table 1). As noted previously, bi-lingual and red-figure eye cups are rare in Athens and indeed are uncommon outside Etruria.91 In a thought-provoking article, Paleothodoros has highlighted the importance of the Italian market during the early development of red-figure, especially in Etruria and Campania, and has gone so far as to suggest that “the success of the new technique lay in the fact that it met the expectations of foreign, overseas customers.”92 The distribution of eye cups in and beyond Etruria would seem to support his hypothesis, at least for this shape and with the data currently available. The chronologi-cal spread of eye cups at Vulci shows that the appear-ance of bilingual eye cups in the 520s is concurrent with the production of fine eye cups in black-figure, but as bilingual and red-figure eye cups grew in popu-larity into the teens, the quality of—and presumably the demand for—black-figure eye cups lessened. Per-haps the assurance that new products incorporating new techniques and technologies would find buyers abroad helped encourage experimentation and inno-vation on the part of painters and potters. So, too, did the desire to remain competitive: the rise of red-figure

89 See Ure (1955), Bell (1977), and Jordan (1988, 64–78) on the Krokotos Group/Group of Walters 48.42. Jordan (1988, 70, 97) speculates on possible connections to the Nikosthenic workshop.

90 Ure (1955, 102 n. 80) also observed that most skyphoi produced by the same group stayed in Athens and seemed in-tended for the home market.

91 Cohen (1978, 315) observes that the Nikosthenic work-shop was primarily responsible for the standardization of the bilingual eye cup type.

92 Paleothodoros 2007a, 167.

affected not only the Attic black-figure eye cup market in Etruria but also Chalcidian eye cups, for Chalcid-ian black-figure disappeared by the end of the sixth century. The latest Attic black-figure eye cups at Vulci belong to the Leafless Group, which in the early fifth century was producing small, lesser-quality examples for a wide variety of markets, as noted previously. One can speculate that the Leafless Group’s focus on the Athenian home market and eastern market for eye cups was intended to offset the dwindling popularity for these vases in Etruria as much as satisfy customer demand in those areas.93

The latest red-figure eye cup in the current Vulcian corpus, a kylix 30.7 cm in diameter attributed to the Colmar Painter, forms part of the last gasp of these vessels, a group Beazley called the Late Archaic Class of Eye Cups.94 In a 1988 article, Williams discussed this collection of vases, attributed to such painters as the Colmar and Antiphon Painters, and drew attention to provenances known at that time: he observed that only one of the fragments came from the Athenian Acropolis, whereas the Colmar Painter’s cup noted above came from Vulci and another two cups in the group came from Spina.95 Based on their collection

93 Cf. Scheffer 1988, 540. Cf. also the small numbers of black-figure eye cups attributed to this workshop, sent to South Italian and Sicilian sites, and found in graves there—e.g., from Ruvo (two examples, both ex market with present location unknown [ABV, 633, no. 11; 634, no. 30; BAPD, nos. 331780, 331799; Beazley Addenda 2 145]) and Taranto (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Taranto [ABV, 635, no. 47; BAPD, no. 331815]).

94 Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. G81 (ARV 2, 51, no. 204; 356, no. 56; BAPD, no. 200414; Beazley Addenda 2 162). For the Late Archaic Class of Eye Cups, see ARV 2, 51 (with listings from 51, nos. 203–18); BAPD, nos. 200413–28. To these ex-amples can be added two red-figure eye cups attributed to the Antiphon Painter: Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. CP12341 (BAPD, no. 1035); Houston, Ménil Collection, ex Swiss mar-ket (ARV 2, 1573, no. 5; 1646, no. 85bis; BAPD, no. 275186).

95 Williams (1988, 676) mentions another cup by the An-tiphon Painter that had surfaced on the market in 1979 and whose otherwise unpublished photographs he had seen in D. von Bothmer’s collection. He also cites inv. no. 1982.11.1 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Williams 1988, 679) and adds the fragmentary eye cups from Paris (Mu-sée du Louvre, inv. nos. CP12341 [BAPD, no. 1035], CP12347 [Williams 1988, 684 n. 21]). On the fragment from the Athe-nian Acropolis, attributed to the Colmar Painter, see supra n. 44. On the cup from Spina by the Antiphon Painter (Fer-rara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. T41D VP), see ARV 2, 51, no. 210; 337, no. 30bis; BAPD, no. 200420; Beazley Addenda 2 162, 218. On another cup from Spina by the Col-mar Painter (Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 42683/T30D VP), see ARV 2, 51, no. 206; 356, no. 56ter; BAPD, no. 200416; Beazley Addenda 2 162, 221. Williams rec-ognized that a fragment that Beazley listed separately from the latter actually joins it; the current location is unknown, ex



histories, he presumed that most, if not all, of the rest had come from Etruria, and he dated the group to the 490s—at least a decade since the last red-figure eye cups had been made—calling their production “a remarkable archaistic step” that may have been oc-casioned by knowledge of the Etruscan market and earlier demand for eye cups there.96 These conclusions are further bolstered by Villard’s archival research into the Louvre’s Campana collection, which demonstrated that ceramic fragments with inventory numbers higher than 10226 almost assuredly come from Cerveteri.97 The new information means that fragments of an ad-ditional eight examples from the Late Archaic Class of Eye Cups have an Etruscan provenance.98 Given their collection history, the remaining seven unprov-enanced cups likely do as well.99 One may speculate whether these cups represent an attempt to prolong the popularity of eye cups in Etruria. The attempt seems to have been ultimately unsuccessful, though, since both black- and red-figure eye cups faded from the Etruscan market soon afterward, about the same time they did elsewhere.

To conclude this discussion of the production and trade of Attic eye cups, distribution data demonstrate that these vases were not exclusive to the Athenian home market and therefore should not be associ-ated exclusively with the Athenian symposion. The Athenian home market, at least based on present evi-dence, became important late in the series, whereas earlier examples largely went elsewhere. The western market, especially Etruria, was most critical, and the patterns of diffusion suggest a form of targeted trade: not with eye cups being sent only to Etruria, but with workshops and traders knowing certain preferences in this region and working to satisfy them. Some traders may have even been Etruscan.100 Specific characteris-tics of many eye cups sent to Etruria, with the large corpus from Vulci serving as a handy case study, imply an ongoing desire to entice customers and dominate the market—for example, with oversized kylikes and use of new techniques in the form of bilingual and red-figure eye cups. Profit must have been anticipated for such an investment of time, resources, and effort by

Italian market (ARV 2, 51, no. 205; 356, no. 56bis; BAPD, no. 200415). Both Spina cups come from the Valle Pega necropo-lis, whose finds remain cursorily published.

96 Williams 1988, 679, 683 (accepted in Osborne 1996, 32).97 Villard 2006.98 Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. CP10896, 11266–70,

12341, 12347 (BAPD, nos. 200419, 200423–200427, 1035).99 In addition to those cited above in Houston and New

York, note Musée du Louvre inv. nos. G288, G289, and G316 and a fragment in Florence (BAPD, nos. 200418, 200421, 200422, 200428).

100 See, e.g., Johnston 1985.

painters/potters/workshops in making the vases and by traders in acquiring them for export. The persis-tence of Athenian eye cups in Etruria during the entire range of their production suggests that these profits were realized, at least for a time. As demand waned at the end of the sixth century and in the early fifth, black-figure eye cup painters like the Leafless Group sought markets elsewhere, including Athens itself. The Late Archaic Class of Eye Cups reveals a last push by red-figure eye cup painters to keep their Etruscan cus-tomers happy—even as red-figure cups without eyes and with more complex narrative compositions were already winning the day.

Having established a particular Etruscan affinity for eye cups and eye vessels generally through the ex-amination of distribution data, the question remains why customers in central Italy wanted and imported them in such quantities. In the next section, I focus on Athenian eye cups with documented findspots in Etruscan tombs and consider how these objects formed part of local material culture as manifested in funerary assemblages.

athenian eye cups in etruscan tombs

Although the Etruscan buyers of Athenian eye cups have historically been overlooked, Etruscan buyers of Greek vases in general have received increased at-tention in scholarship.101 Specifically, the agency of Etruscan consumers in the choice, purchase, and use of imported objects, and perhaps even their influ-ence on the Athenian vase trade, has become more accepted.102 Whereas past scholarship took an often hellenocentric point of view—casting the Etruscans and other populations the Greeks encountered as receivers of objects they did not fully understand and even as aspiring to be Greek—postcolonial perspec-tives, methodologies born of material culture studies, and principles of object biography have encouraged different points of view.103 Neither Greek customs nor

101 See, e.g., the references in supra n. 8, with a range of opinions on the subject.

102 For consumer choice, see, e.g., Walsh (2013) on Sicilian populations and Greek imports into Sicily.

103 On postcolonialism as applied to classical antiquity, see, e.g., van Dommelen 1997; Dietler 2010 (with further refer-ences). As it applied to the Etruscans specifically, see Izzet 2007a, 2007b. For material culture studies as linked to con-cepts of ancient Mediterranean identity, see, e.g., the essays in Hales and Hodos 2010. For object biography and its meth-odologies, see, e.g., Kopytoff 1986; Gosden and Marshall 1999; Langdon 2001 (for object biography as applied to early Greek pottery); Joy 2009. Langdon (2001, 579–84) discusses both the advantages of this approach and the potential pit-falls. For the importance of find contexts in analysis, see, e.g., Stissi 2009; Lynch 2011, 1–3.



Greek objects were accepted wholesale by the Etrus-cans (or any other population the Greeks encoun-tered) but instead were adapted to suit local needs. The symposion as celebrated in Athens, for example, did not exist in Etruria, to the extent that some schol-ars, myself included, prefer “banquet” to “symposion” when speaking of the region.104 Artistic representa-tions suggest that elements of the Greek symposia were selectively adopted by the Etruscans during the seventh and early sixth centuries, but these were in-corporated into already existing traditions of feasting and were transformed to suit Etruscan values.105 Not all Etruscan communities—or households within a given community—adopted Greek sympotic customs to the same degree, and some may not have adopted any.106 To describe the Etruscans as hellenized based on this process of selective and transformative appropriation surely goes too far, and many scholars today avoid the term “hellenization,” too.107

To describe the Etruscans as hellenized based on the import of Greek vases would present a similar fal-lacy. Once Athenian eye cups and other figured pots were brought into central Italy, Etruscan consumers imparted their own interpretations, needs, and values onto them; the old idea that Etruscans happily accept-ed whatever foreign objects came their way without un-derstanding or discrimination has largely fallen by the wayside.108 There is some evidence that in some cases

104 E.g., Small 1994a; 1994b, esp. 46 n. 66; Dietler 2010, 64. Izzet (2007a, 14) suggests that calling an Etruscan banquet a symposion is not only inappropriate but ethnocentric. The Greeks had adopted many of their own feasting customs from the Near East, but as multiple scholars have pointed out, the Greek tendency to appropriate customs or ideas from other cultures is often treated very differently than other cultures doing the same with Greek customs or ideas (e.g., Izzet 2007b; Hall 2009, 611–12; Dietler 2010, 60).

105 Tuck (1994) asserts the preexisting traditions of ban-queting as manifested in the Villanovan period.

106 E.g., at fifth- and fourth-century Spina, the most com-mon combination of Attic vases found in graves is krater + oinochoe + kylix (Nilsson 1999, 13). This might suggest a closer relation to the Greek-style symposion in local practice than at Vulci, where, as is shown later in this article, kraters are less common in tombs.

107 For selective and transformative appropriation in pro-cesses of consumption, see, e.g., the important discussion by Dietler (2010, 55–74), who states that “cross-cultural con-sumption is a continual process of selective appropriation and creative assimilation according to local logics that is also a way of continually reconstructing culture (60).” See also Izzet (2007a, 208–35) for Etruria specifically and the question of “hellenization”; cf. Walsh 2014, 68–71.

108 The “cultural dependence” model is exemplified in Boardman 1999, 198–209 (which preserves the language of the original 1960 edition): “[the Etruscans] gave the Greeks the metal they wanted in return for what was often hardly more than the bright beads with which merchants are usually

Athenian workshops tailored the imagery on vases to Etruscan tastes: namely, on the pots of the Perizoma Group (discussed further below) and perhaps the so-called Tyrrhenian amphoras.109 Others have been proposed; for example, Lynch and de la Genière have explored the reception of heterosexual erotic scenes in Etruria, while Osborne has speculated about scenes of hieroskopia.110 These, however, represent a minority, as Athenian painters tended to paint subjects both that were familiar to them and that they thought would appeal to customers more broadly. Therefore, a fig-ure or scene read one way by an Athenian viewer, or even intended one way by its Athenian maker, could be read completely differently by the vase’s Etruscan owner.111 An eye cup with horsemen on its exterior was appropriate as a gift for Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, as noted earlier, but similar horsemen on an eye cup in a Vulcian tomb could be interpreted as the Dioscuri, as is discussed later.112 An Etruscan viewer may have imagined the “face” of an eye cup to represent a creature familiar and meaningful in his/her own land: a Gorgon, perhaps, or even the horned river god Achelöos, who was important in Etruria for his associations with prosperity and fertility but also for an apparent eschatological dimension.113

Imported vases such as eye cups could attain new meaning through new functions. Kylikes were surely used in Etruscan banquets in life—as suggested by tomb paintings or reliefs on urns and sarcophagi—but those same images also evoked banquets in the afterworld, where the deceased would join his or her

supposed to dazzle natives” (200).109 On the Perizoma Group, see, e.g., Shapiro (2000) and

the “Conclusions” section below. On the Tyrrhenian ampho-ras, see, e.g., von Mehren 2001. Note, however, the caveats expressed by Tuna-Nörling (1997), who discusses the finds of Tyrrhenian Group vases (amphoras and pyxides) at eastern sites.

110 Osborne 2001, 283; de la Genière 2009; Lynch 2009. Lewis has explored the reception of other scenes in Etruria and speculated on other instances of targeted marketing: scenes of women, including erotica (Lewis 1997), and athlet-ic scenes (Lewis 2009). See further comments in Lewis 2003.

111 Cf. Spivey 1991. See also Avramidou’s (2006) discussion of the Codrus Painter’s Divine Banquet cup and Isler-Keré-nyi’s (2003) espousal of the “double perspective” approach.

112 Even those scenes steeped in specifically Athenian my-thology or ideology must have meant something to the Etrus-cans receiving them and placing them in tombs. For a recent attempt to read scenes of Theseus, Erechtheus/Erichthonios, and other Athenian heroes on exported Attic vases from an Etruscan perspective, see Massa-Pairault 2012.

113 For the Etruscan Achelöos and especially his chthon-ic dimension, see Ciuccarelli 2006. Frontal-faced Achelöos heads appear as objects in Etruscan tombs that possibly serve an apotropaic function—e.g., amulets/pendants, small balsa-maria, and bronzes.



ancestors. In the fourth-century Tomba Golini I of Orvieto, the deceased Vel Latithes holds a kylix as he reclines with another family member, Arnth Leinies; they feast not only with deceased relatives but also with Aita/Hades and Phersipnei/Persephone.114 Other funerary rituals involving wine and cups/kylikes are hinted at in surviving representations, even if they can-not be fully understood now. In the Tomba del Barone at Tarquinia, a man with large kylix, joined by a youth playing auloi, raises what seems to be a toast to a fe-male figure, probably the deceased.115 Archaeological evidence suggests commemorative feasting by family members as an early tradition among the Etruscans that persisted into later centuries, while sacrifices and libations also took place at the tomb.116 Once adopted by the Etruscans, the quintessentially Athenian kylix was assimilated into these existing customs, becoming a culichna and favored Etruscan object.117

An example of the literal transformation of an Athe-nian eye cup for an Etruscan funerary context comes with a bilingual kylix today in the Louvre, attributed to Oltos and measuring 31.5 cm in diameter.118 A black- figure Scythian archer appears in the tondo, while an ac-ontist and discus thrower in red-figure appear on each side of the exterior, between the eyes. As is discussed with the mortuary assemblages below, both warrior and athletes would resonate with an Etruscan viewer and prove appropriate for a tomb. Something else was added, however, presumably at the time of depo-sition: an Etruscan genitive inscription “of Charu” was scratched on the bottom of the foot.119 Related some-

114 De Grummond 2006, 231–33, figs. X27, X28; Campo-reale 2009, 233, 235–36, figs. 14.11, 14.12.

115 Pieraccini 2011, 128, fig. 1; Tsingarida (forthcoming). Serra Ridgway (2004–2006, 140) notes a similar scene of a dancing man with kylix facing a dancing woman in the Tomba Cardarelli and suggests both show the reuniting of husband and wife after death.

116 See discussion of mortuary feasting in, e.g., Tuck 1994; Bertani 1995 (focusing on food offerings); Pieraccini 2000; Ciacci 2005 (focusing on wine); Avramidou 2006. Campo-reale (2009) and Prayon (2010) discuss other rituals of tomb cult, including sacrifices and libations.

117 Kylikes may have been used in prophecy by the Etruscans as well, for lekanomanteia. De Grummond (2000, 50, fig. 20) illustrates an Etruscan mirror with Orpheus and Lynceus in which the latter gazes into a kylix, and she compares it to other images in Etruscan art of figures gazing into a phiale. Possibly the prophetic possibilities of a cup of reflective wine help ex-plain the deposition of kylikes in Etruscan tombs (cf. the de-position of mirrors, which de Grummond suggested may have been used in prophecy, too), but this cannot be proved.

118 Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. F126l (ARV 2, 43, no. 72; 55, no. 13; BAPD, no. 200279; Beazley Addenda 2 159, 163).

119 Briquel and Gaultier 1989–1990, cat. no. 78; Colonna 1996, 183, fig. 21. See Maras (2000, 129–32) for this and other inscriptions to gods placed on vases in tombs.

what to the Greek Charon—himself another example of selective appropriation and transformation—Charu(n) was one of the so-called underworld demons of Etruria, who both protected and guided the dead to the afterworld. In art, Charu is a ferocious creature of terrifying visage who often brandishes a hammer and wields keys while appearing on sarcophagi with the de-ceased or on tomb walls next to doorways.120 It would be important to win his favor to ensure protection for the deceased’s passage into the afterworld and for the tomb itself, and the eye cup would seem to be an offer-ing for that purpose. Although the cup’s provenance is unknown, Colonna suggested that it may have come from Vulci, based on the inscription’s letterforms.121 From its Athenian maker’s hands to a trader, on a ship across the sea to its Etruscan owner, then to a Vulcian tomb—with all these changes of location, the eye cup had not only shifted function and meaning but had become the property of an underworld god. Through this process, the cup’s Etruscan owners did not become hellenized; rather, the cup itself was etruscanized.

The Charu inscription on the eye cup further re-calls the agency that objects in Etruscan tombs were thought to possess, as much as the agency of their hu-man producers and purchasers. Tombs were liminal spaces; the hinthial, usually translated as “shade” or “soul,” required both provision and protection as the deceased journeyed to the afterworld, and so did the tomb itself.122 The choices of objects to be placed in burials were therefore both deliberate and selective, and evidence suggests that for at least some Etruscans, objects destined for deposition had their own power to be harnessed or negated. One finds examples of “killed” weapons and pieces of armor; mirrors and bronze or ceramic vessels (including some Athe-nian vases) marked with the word “suthina” (for the tomb) or inscriptions to deities, such as the one on the Charu cup; and intentionally mutilated mirrors, the latter perhaps to keep the hinthial from traveling too easily between worlds.123 Ritual breakage of vases seems to have taken place, although this is often dif-ficult to identify given the later disturbance of most tombs.124 Where objects were placed in relation to the

120 See, e.g., Jannot 1991, 1993; Serra Ridgway 2004–2006; Krauskopf 2006, 76.

121 Colonna 1996, 183 n. 85.122 For the tomb as a liminal space and for the journey of the

deceased, see, e.g., Torelli 2002; Serra Ridgway 2004–2006.123 See de Grummond (2009) for mutilated mirrors (in-

cluding suthina inscriptions) and other “killed” objects. For suthina inscriptions, see, e.g., Briquel 1995; De Puma 2008.

124 Postulated, e.g., for an Attic black-figure stamnos found in a tomb at Marzabotto, whose handles had been removed before deposition (Marzabotto, Museo Nazionale Etrusco, inv. no. 335 [Baldoni 2012, 83–4, figs. 3, 4]).



deceased’s remains seems also to have been important in many cases, although here, too, later disturbance makes this phenomenon difficult to understand.125

Images made specifically for tombs—most famously the tomb paintings at Tarquinia, Orvieto, and Chiusi, but also funerary reliefs, sarcophagi, and sculptures placed inside and outside tombs—had their own pow-er, with many motifs being identified as apotropaia to protect the tomb and deceased. Of particular sig-nificance, given the later popularity of Athenian eye cups, are the early appearances of Gorgoneia in this capacity, as, for example, a fragmentary bronze, rect-angular urn from a seventh-century, so-called princely tomb at Veii, which likely had a Gorgon mask decorat-ing one or both of its long sides.126 Used as an ossuary for the remains of a male, its function promotes an apotropaic reading of its decoration. Also dating to the seventh century is a bronze Gorgon mask (wdth. 19 cm) from the San Paolo Tomb at Cerveteri, which seems to have hung on a wall inside the chamber and whose oversized eyes were emphasized in differ-ent materials.127 One of the earliest painted tombs at Tarquinia, the Tomba delle Pantere from the end of the seventh century, presents a hybrid variation on the theme: a frontal feline mask on the burial cham-ber’s back wall, with fierce staring eyes and the long, snaky hair of a Gorgon.128 It is flanked by two rearing panthers, the left with its head also turned to face the viewer, and all three figures are emblazoned above a pair of stone couches for the deceased. Their protec-tive intent is obvious.

This tendency continues in Etruscan funerary art into the sixth and fifth centuries, although potential apotropaic meaning is admittedly more apparent for some motifs than others. At sixth-century Vulci, pro-tective objects included sculptures of lions, sphinxes, and other creatures placed near doorways, often with oversized eyes. Tarquinian tomb paintings featured underworld demons and ferocious felines as guard-ian figures; erotic or scurrilous images, such as the lovemaking couples in the Tomba dei Tori and Tom-ba della Fustigazione or the defecating figure in the Tomba dei Giocolieri; and even protective gestures made by figures, such as the horned hand of a dancing

125 Nilsson (1999, 13–15) notes, for instance, the consis-tent placement of Attic kraters near the head of the deceased in tombs at Spina, while Carpino (2008, 24–5) observes that in many of the Tarquinian tombs she studied, mirrors were placed by the deceased’s feet.

126 Boitani 1983, 551 (with full discussion of the burial as-semblage on pp. 545–56); cf. Camporeale 2005, 292.

127 Moretti Sgubini 2001, 171–73, pl. 9; Riva 2010, 90. The fragmentary mask has holes near the ears for suspension.

128 Camporeale 2005, 291, fig. 5; 292 (with further references).

woman in the Tomba delle Leonesse.129 A winged phal-lus appears on one wall of the Tomba del Topolino.130 Granted, one makes such identifications as apotropaia without the benefit of textual evidence, but given the clear ideological significance of the tomb among the Etruscans, these identifications are not unreasonable. Some motifs repeat on temple decoration, which fur-ther supports this reading. The Portonaccio temple at Veii, for instance, included terracotta antefixes of Gor-gons, satyrs, Achelöos, and maenads or nymphs along the sima and sphinxes on the roof, while alternating bases of the terracotta acroterial statues featured large pairs of eyes confronting viewers seen and unseen.131

The subject of apotropaia and discussion of Charu’s eye cup bring us full circle to a 19th-century interpreta-tion of Athenian eye cups and other vessels with eyes that has more recently been mostly dismissed as old-fashioned:132 that the eyes are apotropaic and the vases are potentially protective devices. This theory dates from the earliest discoveries of eye vessels, as Dennis advocated in The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria:133

There is some plausibility in the opinion that these eyes were charms against the evil eye, in which the an-cients believed as strongly as the modern southrons of Europe. We know that the Gorgonion was supposed to have the power of averting evil . . . and these eyes may be those of Gorgons, for they are evidently intended to represent a face, the other features being even some-times introduced.

About a century later, in a pair of articles concern-ing apotropaic motifs on Greek vases, Hildburgh wrote:134

129 See Holloway (1986) for apotropaia in the Tomba dei Tori and elsewhere, and Torelli (1997, 67, fig. 9) for the def-ecating man. The apotropaic value of erotic imagery may help explain the popularity of Athenian vases with those subjects in Etruria (de la Genière 2009, 339–40).

130 Cf. the many phalli in Pompeii that appear as protective symbols. See Slane and Dickie (1993) for further discussion of phalli as apotropaic symbols, particularly in the Roman period in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Lewis (1997, 149–51) notes the possible apotropaic interpretation among Etruscans for phallic images on Athenian vases placed in tombs, as well as vases with erotic scenes.

131 Cf. the 1993 reconstruction by G. Colonna and G. Foglia as displayed in the Villa Giulia; the acroterial bases were dis-cussed recently in Michetti 2011. The 2012 reinstallation of the Veii galleries at the Villa Giulia includes the famous roof statues now standing on the reconstructed bases. The bases with eyes alternate with bases showing dolphins, and the eyes themselves resemble those on Attic and Etruscan eye vessels (as noted in Michetti 2011, 103).

132 “Older school,” according to Oakley 1994, 23; cf. Villan-ueva-Puig 2004, 9.

133 Dennis 1848, 438.134 Hildburgh 1946, 157.



It would seem natural . . . that the Etruscans and the Greeks, who were firmly convinced of the possibility of injury, not only through the unintentional agency of an intrinsic “fascinator” or through a voluntary ex-ercise of sorcery, but also through mere envy or jeal-ousy, should adopt the two most obvious presumably effective measures for the avoidance of such injury; that is, by apotropaic devices on the exterior of a drinking-vessel to prevent contamination of its contents, and by some similar device (or devices) within it and in imme-diate contact with the liquid to prevent contamination during the act of drinking.

Some scholars have compared the eyes on the cups to Egyptian wedjat eyes or, like Dennis, to the eyes of Gorgons. The frequent appearance of Gorgoneia in the tondi of eye cups is seen as evidence for the lat-ter.135 Raubitschek likened the eyes on cups to the eyes of Greek ships, thought by some to protect the boats and guide their way.136

The backlash against an apotropaic meaning for eye cups and other eye vessels, as expressed in much scholarship from the 1970s onward, seems part of a larger reaction against magic and superstition that be-gan around the mid 20th century and has continued until recently. In a 2000 article, Fowler noted that al-though an interest in magic and acknowledgment of its importance in ancient societies has never abated among anthropologists, classical scholars “have tend-ed to play down magic as part of Greek religion.”137 Academic skepticism, he suggested, may have driven this development: “although in a post-Christian age we have found ways to take the Olympian gods seri-ously, our modernity has subconsciously prevented us from extending this courtesy to the manufacturers of voodoo dolls.”138 Thus, we find the eyes of eye cups being explained by Eisman as “a decorative fad . . . no particular symbolic interpretation is warranted.”139 In his 1986 book on Dionysian imagery of the Archaic period, Carpenter similarly stated “it is unlikely that their [the eyes’ and masks’] purpose on the vases was either religious or magical” and suggested they “were probably intended to provoke a smile.”140 As discussed earlier in this article, a whole collection of scholars

135 See, e.g., Hildburgh (1946, 1947) and Kunisch (1990, 21 n. 9) for other references.

136 Raubitschek 1972. Dennis (1848, 438–39) had likewise mentioned ships’ eyes in comparison to the eyes on cups. For the possible apotropaic function of ships’ eyes, see, e.g., Nowak 2006, 116–70; Carlson 2009, 357–59.

137 Fowler 2000, 321; see also Kindt 2012, 90–122, esp. 92–9.138 Fowler 2000, 331–32.139 Eisman 1972. 140 Carpenter 1986, 97. Mitchell (2009, 38) describes eyes

as a “decorative motif” and, like Carpenter, focuses on the po-tential for humor.

have dispensed completely with the idea of apotropa-ism, focusing instead on the Athenian symposion and concepts of masking.

The evidence suggests, however, not only that we should open our considerations beyond the Athenian symposion but also, as scholars of ancient religion have asserted in the last decade, that we need to rethink our assumptions about magic. Perhaps in the context of tombs and sanctuaries in Etruria and elsewhere in the Mediterranean—tombs and sanctuaries being the source of most of the known finds—the apotropaic function of the eyes on vases was significant. Certainly within the specific context of Etruscan burials, where the deceased, the tomb, and any family members vis-iting the tomb had need of protection, interpreting the eyes as apotropaia would suit the function not only of cups but also of hydriae, kyathoi, and other shapes with eyes within an assemblage. An Etruscan viewer in Vulci may have read the frontal-faced, splayed-leg satyr playing an aulos on a black-figure eye cup as confron-tational as much as celebratory, and the phallus on the so-called Bomford eye cup as repelling bad luck and bad forces (see fig. 2). The same may be true for the black-figure eye cup attributed to the Amasis Painter that depicts masturbating revelers, defecating dogs, and prominent eye siren.141

Unfortunately, these specific examples cannot be evaluated within their original tomb assemblages, giv-en their unknown findspots. Most eye cups and other Attic vases found in Etruria lack a documented find context except perhaps the name of a site; too many were discovered in the 19th or early 20th century with-out proper records or more recently without proper legality. Having precise findspots for a larger sample of Athenian eye cups would allow specific observations about their deposition in burials, their combination with other objects, the association of certain shapes with certain genders, and other useful information.142 As it is, we can consider here only a selection of mor-tuary assemblages from across Etruria that originally included eye cups, and many remarks must remain tentative. Tentative, too, must be assumptions about these and other vases in individual tombs: were they possessions of the deceased or gifts from the family, used in life or obtained especially for the grave?143 Was the decoration of a vase meaningful to the deceased, such as a favorite god or favorite story, or was it more

141 Supra n. 30. 142 Cf., e.g., Nilsson (1999) regarding Attic pottery in tombs

at Spina.143 Cf. Stissi’s (2009, 25) caveats to discussing vases found

in graves.



meaningful to the family? Can we successfully apply iconographic analysis to a burial assemblage (corredo in Italian) in an effort to discern larger symbolic themes, or do we risk seeing only what we wish to see?144 Finally, examination of Etruscan tomb goods must take into account variations in funerary practice among differ-ent communities: the design and form of tombs, the ways in which deceased community members were prepared for burial (cremation vs. inhumation), and the characteristic composition of assemblages. As is discussed below, whether a burial was at Vulci, Foiano della Chiana, or another site did affect how Athenian eye cups and other objects for the grave were appro-priated for funerary use.

Athenian Eye Cups in Tombs at VulciAmong the current corpus of 158 eye cups from

Vulci—the largest concentration of these vessels in Etruria, as we have seen—eight have documented findspots and can be considered with their larger tomb assemblages. These include three black-figure eye cups from Chamber A of Tomb LXXIX (north of the Cuc-cumella tumulus), which was excavated by Gsell in the late 19th century; a black-figure eye cup from Tomb 47 (also known as the Tomb of the Warrior, “Tomba del Guerriero”) of the Osteria necropolis, discovered dur-ing the Mengarelli excavations of 1929; another black-figure example from Tomb 50, discovered the same year and belonging to the same tomb complex; two bilingual eye cups from the so-called Radicetti Tomb found in 1973, also in the Osteria necropolis; and a large red-figure eye cup attributed to Oltos, found in the so-called Tomba del Kottabos (Tomb A9/1998) during recent excavations in the same area.145 Along

144 Examples of iconographic analysis of tomb assemblages with Greek vases include Williams (1992) on the so-called Bry-gos Tomb of Capua, Isler-Kerényi (2003) on Tomb 128 of the Valle Trebba necropolis at Spina, Marconi (2004) on Grave 2 in the Contrada Mosè cemetery outside Akragas, de la Genière (2003) on the importance of iconography on imported vases in non-Athenian graves generally, and Paleothodoros (2009) with assorted examples from Greece and Etruria (including the Tomba del Kottabos at Vulci, also considered here).

145 One can also mention the discovery of eye cups in oth-er Vulcian tombs excavated by Gsell (Tomb 34, for which see Gsell 1891, 81–3) and the Società Hercle in the mid 20th cen-tury (Tombs 154[?] and 156, for which see Società Hercle 1964). However, since most of the finds from these excava-tions were dispersed, it is difficult to discuss the tomb assem-blages. A bilingual eye cup (diam. 32 cm) in the Torlonia collection was discovered in a chamber tomb southeast of the Cuccamella and was the only Attic vase there, with other finds limited only to “molti frammenti di semplici vasi di bucchero nero” (Helbig 1881a, 246). This cup has athletes in the tondo and on both exterior sides between the eyes (ARV 2, 43, no. 71; BAPD, no. 200278). A small black-figure eye cup (diam. 18 cm)

with Gsell’s Tomb LXXIX, I focus here on Mengarelli Tombs 47 and 50 and the Tomba del Kottabos. Tomb LXXIX’s contents were dispersed not long after dis-covery, but the assemblages of the three latter tombs were reinstalled in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in 2010.146

Tomb LXXIX, North of the Cuccumella Tumulus.The excavations of Gsell at Vulci in 1889 were undertaken at the behest of Prince Giulio Torlonia and, in some cases, revisited areas that had been cleared during the Bonaparte excavations. This was true of the area north of the Cuccumella tumulus; as Gsell stated, because Bonaparte’s agents had been there already, “[i]l nous a été par conséquent impossible d’y faire des fouilles méthodiques.”147 Nonetheless, Gsell attempted to re-cord finds accurately in his publication of 1891, and although the Athenian vases he discovered have been dispersed, it is sometimes possible to reconstruct the tomb assemblages, at least in part. This is true of one of the chambers of Tomb LXXIX, which contained multiple Attic vases, including three eye cups, and a variety of local and imported goods.

Tomb LXXIX was a so-called tomba a cassone charac-teristic of Vulci: a corridor, or dromos, led to an open-air vestibule (3.05 x 2.10 m) off which branched two chambers, labeled by Gsell as Chambers A and B, both oriented to the west.148 Typically, each chamber of a Vulcian tomba a cassone held a single burial, although Gsell does not comment whether any remains were visible here. The open vestibules served as liminal

with a lion between the eyes on each side was found with a group of black-figure amphoras (none of them presently identified but one seeming to be from the Tyrrhenian Group from its description) in a tomb (Tomb D) described in Pel-legrini 1896, 288–89.

146 Finds from the Radicetti/1973 Tomb (displayed in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Vulci) are catalogued in Rizzo 1988, 78–9; 1990, 100–3. It was of the rectangular cas-sone type, measured 2 x 2 m, and contained at least one male burial. In addition to the two Attic bilingual eye cups, the as-semblage included an Attic transport amphora, four Etruscan black-figure ceramic vessels (two amphoras, two oinochoai), an Attic black-glazed stemmed dish, two bucchero kyathoi, one impasto kyathos, an iron spearpoint, two plates, a frag-mentary handle from a bronze ladle, a bronze phiale 30 cm in diameter, bronze implements that might be from a chest or piece of furniture, and three glass game pieces or disks. One Attic eye cup, inv. no. 76107, measures 36 cm in diameter, is attributed to the Bowdoin Painter, and has ath-letes on the exterior and interior (BAPD, no. 41908; Rizzo 1990, 100–1, cat. no. 2, figs. 182, 184). The other, inv. no. 76108, measures 32 cm in diameter and may be from the same workshop; it has a satyr in the tondo and trefoils or “noses” be-tween the eyes on the exterior (BAPD, no. 41907; Rizzo 1990, 101, cat. no. 3, figs. 183, 185).

147 Gsell 1891, 178.148 See Gsell (1891, 178, fig. 55) for a rudimentary plan.



regions between the living and the dead and may have been used for funerary ceremonies such as banquets. Many sixth-century Vulcian stone sculptures probably came from these areas, where they guarded the en-trances to burial chambers: images of lions, sphinxes, and other imposing creatures.149 The banqueting and apotropaic considerations of Vulcian cassone tombs may have affected the deposition of Athenian eye cups and other Attic vessels inside.

Chamber A, the focus of this discussion, was the smaller of the two, measuring 2.40 x 1.90 m.150 Gsell noted that the chamber had been entered previous-ly, he assumed by thieves looking for gold, who had damaged other objects in their hunt. Many vases were broken, but he lists Attic and Etruscan black-figure, black-glazed, and bucchero storage vessels and cups. He also mentions a group of broken alabastra (made of actual alabaster), fragmentary bronze vessels, and a group of broken ivory pieces, which may have belonged to one or more musical instruments. The assemblage thus evoked the theme of banqueting, while the alabas-tra recalled the preparation of the body for burial.151

Three of the four Athenian vases Gsell describes from Chamber A—a large black-figure amphora and three black-figure eye cups—have been previously iden-tified, and we can now add the fourth.152 The amphora, illustrated by Gsell and identified by Beazley, resides in the De Young Museum/San Francisco Legion of Honor; attributed to the Antiope Painter, it features a scene of hoplite combat on one side and Dionysian thi-asos on the other, with the still-preserved lid depicting three racing chariots.153 Dionysian themes likewise re-peat on all three eye cups. The largest (diam. 31.5 cm) is attributed to the Group of Walters 48.42 and, typi-cally of that group, has frontal faces of Dionysos be-tween the eyes on each side, grapevines encircling the whole (fig. 7).154 As noted previously, most cups of this

149 See discussion in van Kampen 2009, 145–49 (with fur-ther references).

150 See Gsell (1891, 178–84) for a description of the tomb and its contents.

151 The Etruscan female underworld spirit known as Lasa sometimes carries an alabastron in depictions on mirrors and elsewhere (see, e.g., de Grummond 1991, 16, 22).

152 Beazley in his catalogues cited Gsell only for vases that were illustrated in the latter’s book, so identifications of oth-ers that are not illustrated must come from other means.

153 San Francisco, Legion of Honor, inv. no. 243.24874 (ABV, 367, no. 92; BAPD, no. 302087; Beazley Addenda 2 98; CVA San Francisco 1 [United States of America 10], 27–31, pls. 8–10; Gsell 1891, 179–80, no. 1, pls. 10–12).

154 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 01.8057, acquired by Edward Perry Warren from the Torlonia collection (ABV, 206, no. 5; BAPD, no. 302638; Beazley Addenda 2 55; CVA Boston 2 [United States of America 19], 44–5 [recording the prov-enance], pl. 102; Paralipomena 94, 96; Gsell 1891, 181–82, no.

type with known provenances come from Etruria. On each side of the second cup (diam. 22.1 cm), attribut-ed to the Leafless Group, a seated figure of Dionysos, holding a drinking horn, appears between the eyes as satyrs frolic around the handles.155 Athenian vases with Dionysos and his thiasos were extremely popular in sixth-century Etruria and for placement in Etruscan tombs. Not only would the god and his followers have evoked the banquet and commerce in wine (the lat-ter was important at Vulci), but in Etruria Dionysos/Fufluns possessed a strong eschatological dimension that granted these images additional meaning.156 On the famous bronze Piacenza liver, for instance, with its inscribed compendium of Etruscan gods and goddess-es, Fufluns appears in the sector commonly thought to include chthonic deities.157 The importance of his worship at Vulci specifically is attested by fifth-century

6; Bell 1977, pl. 10, fig. 1). Warren’s notes gave the reference to Gsell’s publication.

155 Chicago, Smart Museum of Art, F.B. Tarbell collection, inv. no. 1967.115.337(ABV, 632, no. 1; BAPD, no. 331772; Beazley Addenda 2 145; Johnson 1943, 398–99, cat. no. 15). War-ren gave Tarbell this and other vases in 1902 and provided notes with references to Gsell’s publication.

156 See, e.g., Paleothodoros 2002, 151–53; 2009, 50–1; Pizzi-rani 2010a, 2010b; Palmieri 2011, 123–28 (all with earlier ref-erences for Dionysos on Attic vases in Etruria). For Dionysos in Etruria generally, see, e.g., LIMC 3:531–40, s.v. “Dionysos/Fufluns”; Cristofani and Martelli 1978; Colonna 1991; Bon-fante 1993; Paleothodoros 2007b. For the wine trade in Etru-ria, see Zifferero 2005.

157 E.g., Jannot 2005, 160. Cf. the apparent cult of Dionysos/Fufluns at Campo della Fiera just outside Orvieto, where he may have been linked to female chthonic deities (Bizzarri 2012 [with further references]).

fig. 7. Attic eye cup attributed to the Group of Walters 48.42, from Vulci. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Henry Lillie Pierce Fund, inv. no. 01.8057 (© 2015 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).



inscriptions on two Attic red-figure cups and a rhyton found in other tombs, inscriptions that say “Fufluns Pachies” and dedicate the vessels to the god.158

The assemblage of Chamber A included a third black-figure eye cup for which Gsell provides a pre-cise description and measurements (diam. 21 cm):159

A l’intérieur . . . satyre barbu à queue de cheval, dan-sant. . . . A l’extérieur, de chaque côté des anses: au centre, un cavalier galopant à droite . . . derrière le cavalier, oiseau volant à gauche. A droite et à gauche de cette figure, un grand oeil. . . . Sous chaque anse, deux branches de vigne chargées de grappes.

This cup has not been previously recognized, but thanks to a photograph preserved in BAPD, it can be identified as an eye cup attributed to the Painter of Vatican G69; its current location is unknown, but the cup was formerly on the Rome art market.160 The grapevines decorating the cup and the satyr in its tondo link it to the Dionysian themes of the three other Attic vases already mentioned, while the horse-men on the exterior recall the racing chariots on the amphora’s lid. As in Greece, horses and chariots were symbols of status and prestige for the Etruscans; for an Etruscan viewer, the positive image of the horse-men on the cup was likely amplified by the inclusion of birds, given their association with divination and auspicious signs.

It is possible that the Etruscan viewer would have seen specific mythological characters in these twinned figures: the Dioscuri, or Tinas Cliniar as they were known locally (sons of Tinia), who received cult and were considered helpful guides to the afterworld.161 In some Tarquinian tomb paintings of the late sixth and early fifth centuries, including the Tomba del Barone (ca. 510–500 B.C.E.) and Tomba del Triclinio (ca. 470 B.C.E.), pairs of horsemen appear who have been per-suasively identified as the Tinas Cliniar.162 The clear-est attestation of their worship in a funerary context comes with an Etruscan inscription on the foot of a monumental cup by Oltos found in a chamber tomb at Tarquinia: “Venel Atelinas gave this to the sons of

158 Cristofani and Martelli (1978) also suggest that a shrine or sanctuary of Fufluns may have stood in the area of the Doganella necropolis, given the discovery of one of the cups there; see also Maggiani 1997, 22–3, cat. nos. A1–3, B1.

159 Gsell 1891, 182–83, no. 8 (excerpts).160 ABV, 210, no. 5 (where the provenance is given as Vul-

ci, but with no other references); BAPD, no. 302675 (with photograph).

161 For the Tinas Cliniar, see, e.g., LIMC 3:597–608, s.v. “Ti-nas Cliniar”; de Grummond 1991; 2006, 189–95; Colonna 1996; Jannot 2005, 154–55; Simon 2006, 54, 60.

162 E.g., de Grummond 1991, 24–6.

Tinia” (itun turuce venel atelinas tinas cliniiaras).163 This cup was found with a second red-figure cup de-picting horsemen on its exterior and interior, which Tsingarida has suggested would have evoked the Ti-nas Cliniar.164 If the family of the deceased interred in Tomb LXXIX at Vulci read their own eye cup’s horsemen as the twins, then that only added to its potency and granted their loved one further protec-tion and assistance.

Tomb 47 (Tomba del Guerriero), Osteria Necropolis. The excavations conducted by Ugo Ferraguti and Ranie-ro Mengarelli in Vulci’s Osteria necropolis in 1929 yielded a series of 53 tombs, the finds from most of which remain unpublished.165 Among the discoveries was a cassone tomb complex with (at least) nine burial chambers grouped around a dromos and vestibule; two of these, labeled Tombs 47 and 50 by Ferraguti, featured Athenian black-figure eye cups among their assemblages. Each chamber housed a single male occupant, and both were small, although Tomb 47 contained a literal wealth of objects within its limited space (ca. 2 x 2 m).

Tomb 47 is nicknamed the Tomba del Guerriero for its assemblage of bronze equipment suggesting that the deceased was a soldier of significant social status and/or that his family wished to portray him thus.166 Although he has been often described as a hoplite buried with his panoply, the Villa Giulia’s reinstalla-tion identifies some of the smaller iron and bronze objects, including a lion’s head and group of wooden fragments, as parts of a disassembled cart or chariot. The amount of weaponry is unmatched in Vulcian

163 Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense, inv. no. RC6848 (ARV 2, 60, no. 66; 1622; BAPD, no. 200502; Beazley Addenda 2 165; Paralipomena 327; Colonna 1996, 174–75, fig. 15; Maras 2000, 130–31, fig. 4; de Grummond 2006, 189–90, figs. 8.18a, b; Tsingarida [forthcoming]). The cup’s discovery and its tomb are discussed in Helbig 1875, 171–73.

164 Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense, inv. no. RC5292 (ARV 2, 86, no. 4; BAPD, no. 200692; Beazley Addenda 2 170; Paralipomena 330). The cup is attributed to the Pedieus Painter. Tsingarida (forthcoming) further suggests that both cups would have been dedicated to the Dioscuri and used in a form of the Theoxenia feast.

165 See Buranelli (1994, 43–6) for brief discussion of the 1929 Ferraguti-Mengarelli excavations in the Osteria necrop-olis, especially the plan of discovered tombs (44, fig. 3).

166 Brief descriptions of Tomb 47 and its contents can be found in Buranelli 1994, 45–6; Riccioni 2003, 1. Some of Fer-raguti’s photographs of the tomb as discovered with its con-tents in situ are published in Buranelli 1994, pls. 75–7. The Athenian vases specifically are catalogued in Riccioni 2003, 1–4, cat. nos. 1–5, figs. 1–16. The bronzes are discussed by Ferraguti (1937, 116–19, figs. 8–10), and some are catalogued in Torelli 2000, 560–61, cat. nos. 61–6 (with further refer-ences). Whitley (2002, 219–20) warns against reading grave goods as “straightforward biographical facts.”



cassone tombs: a large bronze shield with relief plaques securing the armband and depicting the myth of Achil-les and Troilos, spears, swords, a knife, a bronze hel-met of the so-called Negau type, and a pair of bronze greaves. Ferraguti’s original photographs show the bronze helmet suspended on the tomb wall. In his initial publication of the bronzes, he further noted that traces of vegetal garlands could be seen on the walls in the earliest moments of discovery.

The military equipment was joined by an array of bronze vessels and utensils, among them two beaked jugs, an oinochoe, an olpe, a stamnos, a sieve, two ladles, a large omphalos bowl, and a thymiaterion or candelabrum. Ceramic vessels in the assemblage included two oversized Etruscan bucchero kyathoi, a transport amphora of possibly local production, two small ceramic platters also of possibly local produc-tion, and five Attic vases. The latter include a pseudo- Panathenaic black-figure amphora, a smaller black-figure neck amphora, two black-figure lip cups, and a large black-figure eye cup. Together, the bronze and ceramic vases and utensils form a nearly complete banqueting set, which as Hannestad and Reusser have noted, is characteristic of Vulcian chamber tombs, al-though the Tomba del Guerriero exceeds the rest in its richness.167 The two ceramic platters from Tomb 47 hold the centuries-old bone remnants of this last celebratory feast. The bucchero kyathoi and Attic eye cup, too large for effective drinking, may have been used for libations or other ritual purposes, or as offer-ings in their own right.

The iconographic subjects of the Athenian vases mesh well with one another as well as with other ob-jects in Tomb 47 and appear to have been carefully selected for this burial. The neck amphora represents on its obverse Herakles fighting Amazons, the theme of combat recalling the military equipment of the assemblage.168 So, too, the pseudo-Panathenaic am-phora, which has the striding warrior Athena on the obverse, her shield device a chariot.169 Athena, known locally as Menerva or Menrva, was critical in Etruscan religion, with healing, oracular, and other powers above and beyond those she was believed to possess in Greece.170 The reverse of the pseudo-Panathenaic

167 Hannestad 1989, 116–17; Reusser 2004, esp. 150–51.168 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no.

63572 (BAPD, no. 9004347; Riccioni 2003, 2, cat. no. 2, figs. 4, 5).

169 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63573, found with its lid (BAPD, no. 5564; Riccioni 2003, 1–2, cat. no. 1, figs. 1–3).

170 For Athena/Menerva in Etruria, see, e.g., LIMC 2:1050–74, s.v. “Menerva”; Jannot 2005, 147–49; de Grummond 2006, 71–8 (all with further references).

amphora depicts a pair of sparring boxers observed by a third boxer and trainer. This scene recalls ath-letic images in Etruscan art elsewhere; funerary urns from Chiusi and tomb paintings from Tarquinia (e.g., from the Tomba Cardarelli and Tomba degli Auguri) suggest that boxing played an important role in fu-nerary games and was generally popular in Etruria.171 Boxing was also associated with Polydeukes (Pultuce to the Etruscans), the immortal twin of the Dioscuri/Tinas Cliniar.

The black-figure eye cup (fig. 8), measuring 30.8 cm in diameter, features on each exterior side a standing figure of Dionysos between two dancing satyrs, and a Gorgon in the tondo.172 The god wears a long chiton and himation, each finely patterned, with added red and white indicating the fabric’s richness. Crowned with ivy, he holds a keras (drinking horn) in one scene, a kantharos in the other. While the latter depiction of Dionysos is not unusual, his kantharos is: incised on the fictive vase is the head of a youth, facing left toward the god.173 The effect is almost self-referential, with Dionysos gazing at the face on the kantharos he holds, just as the cup’s viewer engages with the eyes on its exterior. The kantharos was, of course, a familiar vase shape to the Etruscans, having been produced in buc-chero since the second half of the seventh century.174 As for Dionysos and the satyrs, they repeat on the small black-figure neck amphora placed in the tomb, its re-verse showing the god with a dancing satyr and maenad.

In addition to militarism and banqueting, protec-tion forms a third theme of the Tomb 47 assemblage. The apotropaism of the eye cup has been well noted,

171 Lewis (2009) discusses the popularity of Attic vases with athletic themes in Etruria.

172 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63558 (BAPD, no. 9004348; Riccioni 2003, 2–3, cat. no. 3, figs. 6–10).

173 A rare comparandum can be found on a mid sixth- century black-figure hydria now at the Getty (manner of Lydos), on which Dionysos holds a kantharos incised with a horse and rider (Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. no. 86.AE.113 [BAPD, no. 79]). As Shapiro (1989, 91 n. 79) ob-serves, this is one of the earliest vases to depict Dionysos with a kantharos, which would eventually replace the drinking horn as his major attribute on Attic vases.

174 Although scholars agree that the Attic kantharos derives from a non-Attic shape, there is debate as to its origins. Many believe it comes from Boeotia; Carpenter (1986, 120–23) sug-gests that the kantharos as an attribute of Dionysos in Athe-nian iconography came from Peisistratos and was inspired by the kantharos’ Boeotian lineage. Hedreen (1992, 88–9) suggests a Cycladic/Naxian heritage. A third possibility is that the shape came to Attic pottery from Etruscan bucchero (see, e.g., Courbin 1953; Rasmussen 1985, 33–4). For sixth-century kantharoi in the Agora, see Sparkes and Talcott 1970, 113–14, 280, cat. nos. 624–26.



both with the eyes themselves and with the Gorgon inside; Gorgons likewise appear in the tondi of the two black-figure lip cups.175 One has animal combat on each exterior side (lions and boars), continuing the agonistic theme, while the other depicts lions and sphinxes. For the Greeks, animal combat as manifested in archaic architectural sculpture could have an apo-tropaic dimension, as well as expressing the power of the deity. Lions, sphinxes, Gorgons, and even eyes could be found in Etruscan temple decoration in similar capacities, as noted earlier, while local to Vul-ci were wide-eyed stone sculptures of lions, sphinxes, and other creatures, whose purpose was to guard the tomb and the deceased.

Tomb 50, Osteria Necropolis. Although more sparsely supplied than the warrior of Tomb 47, the male oc-cupant of Tomb 50, two doors down, was buried with a combination of items that similarly evoked the Vul-cian good life through military, athletic, and ban-queting references.176 The chamber measured 2.20 x 1.50 m and, like Tomb 47, lacked stone “benches” for the deceased and his tomb equipment. Everything was spread along the floor at discovery, although it is possible that here and elsewhere, the deceased was originally buried in a wooden sarcophagus.177 Along

175 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. nos. 63556 (BAPD, no. 9004349; Riccioni 2003, 3–4, cat. no. 4, figs. 11–13), 63557 (BAPD, no. 9004350; Riccioni 2003, 4, cat. no. 5, figs. 14–16).

176 For a brief description of the tomb and its contents, see Riccioni 2003, 4. For the Attic vases specifically, see Riccioni 2003, 4–8, cat. nos. 6–10, figs. 17–32. The assem-blage is newly reinstalled in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia as of 2010.

177 Weber-Lehmann (2007) discusses this possibility based on the number of nails and other implements found in Etruscan tombs usually assumed to belong to other types of furniture.

with a large bronze discus, bronze weapons, bronze vessels (oinochoe, olpe, two pitchers), and a set of bone dice, five Athenian vases were included in the assemblage: a black-figure eye cup, a black-figure hy-dria with military scenes attributed to the Antimenes Painter, a small black-figure neck amphora with the mission of Triptolemos, and two small black-figure cups with lotus-and-palmette friezes.

The eye cup included in Tomb 50 (figs. 9, 10), the name vase of the Painter of Vulci T50, is slightly smaller than that from Tomb 47, measuring 29.7 cm in diameter.178 It forms part of a group of about 30 eye cups with profile busts as the primary decoration and is even more distinctive by having four trios of over-lapping busts circling the vase. Herakles and a pair of helmeted warriors appear between the eyes on each side (see fig. 9), while under each handle are two ad-ditional helmeted warriors and a bearded man (see fig. 10). The identities of the figures other than Herakles have been disputed: the bearded figure under each handle has been identified as Theseus by Riccioni, for instance, and as Iolaos by Pipili.179 He could, however, be anyone; perhaps an Etruscan viewer would have seen him as Tinia, the Etruscan Zeus.

A comparison can be made between this cup and another example from Vulci today in the Vatican, the latter attributed to Nikosthenes as potter and featuring overlapping busts of Hermes, Athena, and Herakles on one side between the eyes.180 An unprovenanced eye cup in the Getty, almost certainly found in Italy and also signed by Nikosthenes as potter, depicts busts of Athena and Herakles on one side, and on the other a bearded man and two women, the first wearing a po-los and the second a diadem (Hades, Demeter, and Persephone?).181 It is noteworthy that Herakles ap-pears on all three of these imported cups, given his significance in Etruria. For the Etruscans, Hercle was god more than hero, receiving cult in many sanctuaries —including one near the Vulci city gate—and mentioned

178 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no 63613 (BAPD, no. 5563; Riccioni 2003, 5–8, cat. no. 8, figs. 22–9).

179 For the Theseus identification, see Riccioni 2003, 7. Ric-cioni suggests that the helmeted warriors reference the mili-tary prowess of both Herakles and Theseus—e.g., in the two Amazonomachies. For the Iolaos identification, see LIMC 5:687, s.v. “Iolaos,” cat. no. 2.

180 Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. no. 456, ca. 540–530 B.C.E. (ABV, 235; BAPD, no. 301270). The reverse side includes a Gorgon between the eyes, while the tondo fea-tures only the inscription “chaire kai piei.”

181 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, ex Bareiss collection, inv. no. 86.AE.170 (ABV, 231, no. 10 [“Roman market”]; BAPD, no. 201950; Beazley Addenda 2 60; Paralipomena 109; Tosto 1999, 232, cat. no. 166).

fig. 8. Attic eye cup, from Vulci. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63558 (© Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).



on the bronze Piacenza liver together with other dei-ties.182 His successful journey to the underworld, victo-ries against monsters, and apotheosis to Olympos gave him an eschatological dimension in Etruria as well.183 As for the pairs of helmeted warriors on the Tomb 50 eye cup, one could perhaps interpret them as the Di-oscuri/Tinas Cliniar, who as noted above were believed by the Etruscans to assist the dead on their journey to the afterlife. All three cups with overlapping profile busts would have been welcome grave gifts for the de-piction of gods and heroes, the eyes granting them ad-ditional apotropaic potency. With its focus on heroes and warriors, Tomb 50’s cup finds echoes in other objects placed in the tomb—namely, the black-figure hydria with a military chariot scene on the body and combat scene on the shoulder.184

The specific placement of Tomb 50’s eye cup may be significant: along with a small bronze olpe, it was set upside down near the door to the vestibule.185 The eye cup from the Tomba del Kottabos (discussed lat-er) was similarly placed upside down near the cham-ber door, together with other objects at the feet of the deceased. With so few assemblages to examine, it is impossible to discern whether this forms part of a pattern for eye cups at Vulci. It is tempting, howev-er, to suggest that the apotropaic nature of the eyes would have rendered the cups appropriate to keep near the liminal and potentially dangerous space of the threshold, much like the stone sculptures already mentioned. The upside-down position may also be meaningful. An Attic black-figure eye cup attributed to the Painter of Tübingen D41 was discovered in-tact and upside down inside a cistern or pit in the so-called Monumental Complex of the Pian di Ci-vita of Tarquinia; its deposition clearly deliberate, it could have been an offering to chthonic deities and/or signaled the termination of use for both that ves-sel and the cistern.186 The purposeful overturning

182 For Herakles/Hercle in Etruria, see, e.g., LIMC 5:196–253, s.v. “Herkle/Herakles”; Jannot 2005, 165–66; Simon 2006, 51, 58. Votive inscriptions to Hercle have been found on some Athenian vases, most notably the Ilioupersis cup painted by Onesimos and potted by Euphronios, thought to have come from Cerveteri and returned by the Getty to the Italian government in 1999: Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 121110 (BAPD, no. 13363 [with numer-ous references]).

183 For the reception of Attic imagery of Herakles in Etru-ria and its eschatological dimensions, see, e.g., Moon 1983, 106–9; Brizzolara and Baldoni 2010b; Palmieri 2011, 129–35.

184 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63612 (Riccioni 2003, 4–5, cat. no. 6, figs. 17–19).

185 According to a plan of the tomb displayed in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia with the objects.

186 Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense, inv. no. 170/11 (with decoration of a cock between the eyes on both

of objects can be paralleled elsewhere in Etruria and Italy, such as ritual areas of Poggio Colla and the Li-gurian site of Monte Zignago.187

sides) (Chiaramonte Treré 1987, 87, pl. 31.4; Bonghi Jovino 2001, 404). Chiaramonte Treré suggests the cup is “evidente-mente di un sacrificio di espiazione compiuto all’atto della chiusura del pozzo.” Stoop (1979), while not discussing this cup, suggests that vessels placed upside down in sacred con-texts were chthonic offerings.

187 Warden (2011, 58–9) discusses both systematic breakage and overturning.

fig. 9. Attic eye cup by the Painter of Vulci T50, from Vulci. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63613 (© Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).

fig. 10. Attic eye cup by the Painter of Vulci T50, detail of exterior under handle, from Vulci. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63613 (© Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).



Unlike other Vulcian tombs under discussion here, no objects with Dionysian imagery appear in Tomb 50. The small black-figure neck amphora, however, may have contained eschatological undertones for its Etruscan owner.188 Both sides feature a nearly identi-cal scene of Triptolemos on his cart, holding grain in his left hand and a long scepter in his right, facing a standing female figure. The cart lacks wings like other black-figure representations of Triptolemos’ mission, although it does have swans’ heads at the top of the seat, giving it a throne-like appearance. Triptolemos is bearded, as is typical in black-figure scenes, while the female figures wear wreaths and delicately grasp their skirts. The woman on one side holds a flower as she greets Triptolemos, while the woman on the op-posite side holds nothing in her second hand; it is not clear whether both sides are meant to show Demeter, as Riccioni proposed, or whether the woman with the flower is Persephone/Kore.

The Mission of Triptolemos presents an icono-graphic puzzle. The subject has strong Eleusinian overtones that would be perceptible to an Athenian vase painter or viewer, and most scholarship has con-centrated on the motif’s Athenian context—for exam-ple, the Peisistratid promotion of Eleusinian cult that may have inspired black-figure vase painters.189 And yet, as de la Genière and Pierre observed, most vases with documented provenance that show the Mission of Triptolemos come from Italian sites, whether in Etru-ria, Campania, or Sicily.190 Among 22 examples either known or said to be from Etruria, 11 come from Vulci, including four black-figure vases (one being the am-phora from Tomb 50).191 Particularly with the earliest depictions of the mission—the ones lacking giveaway figures, such as Eumolpos or the nymph Eleusis, both seen on the Makron skyphos from the Capuan “Bry-gos Tomb”—how deeply would an Etruscan viewer be acquainted with the Eleusinian subtexts? For that matter, how acquainted would that viewer be with Triptolemos himself, who is unattested in Etruscan art and epigraphy? We cannot assume that every

188 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 63614 (BAPD, no. 3; Hayashi 1992, 130, cat. no. 14; Riccioni 2003, 5, cat. no. 7, figs. 20, 21; Pierre 2008, 123, cat. no. AT 2).

189 E.g., Raubitschek and Raubitschek 1982; Shapiro 1989, 76–7; Hayashi 1992; Matheson 1994.

190 De la Genière 1988, 163; Pierre 2008.191 The other three black-figure vases from Vulci that depict

the Mission of Triptolemos are an amphora by the Leagros Group (Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 1539 [BAPD, no. 1]); an unattributed amphora (Würzburg, Martin-von-Wagner Museum, inv. no. L197 [BAPD, no. 404; Shapiro 1989, pl. 35a]); and a neck amphora by the Leagros Group (Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. no. 16447 [ABV, 374, no. 195; BAPD, no. 302190]).

tomb containing a vase with a scene of Triptolemos belonged to an Eleusinian initiate; nor can we assume that this mystic cult even existed at Vulci, certainly not in the later sixth century.

An Eleusinian reading, however, is not necessary for the amphora placed in Tomb 50 to be meaning-ful. Assuming that its Etruscan owners did identify the figure in the cart as Triptolemos and knew his role in the diffusion of agriculture, that alone would be significant, given the richness of grain cultivation in Etruria and its economic importance. Multiple forms of wheat were grown in the region and had been since the Villanovan period, along with barley, millet, and oats; during the sixth century, new innovations, such as iron tools and implements (including the use of iron in cart construction) and the development of new irrigation techniques, had led to increased grain pro-duction. Little is known of the Etruscan goddess Vei, the apparent equivalent of the Greek Demeter, but she seems to have served as an earth deity and was associ-ated with fertility. She was also chthonic in function; inscriptions attest, for instance, her worship within the Cannicella sanctuary of Orvieto, part of a necropolis.192 Phersipnei—the Etruscan Persephone—was similarly a chthonic deity, along with her husband, Aita, as ruler of the underworld. It is possible that Triptolemos, too, held a chthonic dimension for the Etruscans, his jour-ney being equated with the passage of the dead. Two black-figure amphoras found at Vulci have the mission on one side and depict Dionysos on the other; to an Etruscan viewer, perhaps Demeter and Dionysos on each were Vei and Fufluns celebrating the cultivation of grain and vine but also serving as underworld es-corts. The mission scene on the unattributed amphora in Würzburg further includes Hermes (Turms to the Etruscans) and the seated figure of Hades, making an eschatological reading even more comprehensible. If these interpretations of Triptolemos’ mission in Etruscan contexts are accurate, then the family of the deceased man in Tomb 50 had, with both amphora and eye cup, surrounded him with divine figures to aid his transition to the afterworld.

192 See, e.g., Colonna 1987, esp. 22–3; Simon 2006, 47–8. Simon follows Colonna in thinking that the famous nude stone sculpture of a goddess found in the Cannicella sanc-tuary may depict Vei. It might not be coincidental that three Attic vases with a scene of the Mission of Triptolemos were found at Orvieto, all acquired by the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen in 1924: a hydria by the Berlin Painter, inv. no. 2696 (ARV 2, 210, no. 181, 1634; BAPD, no. 201999); a pelike by the Triptolemos Painter, inv. no. 2695 (ARV 2, 362, no. 12; BAPD, no. 203810; Beazley Addenda 2 222); and an oinochoe by the Cleveland Painter, inv. no. 2697 (ARV 2, 517, no. 11; BAPD, no. 205799).



Tomba del Kottabos (Tomb A9/1998), Osteria Necropo-lis. The so-called Tomba del Kottabos comprises one of three chambers in a tomba a cassone discovered in 1998 and excavated under the auspices of the Soprint-endenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridi-onale.193 The smallest chamber contained a grave from the Hellenistic period that will not be considered here, but it attests to the cassone’s continued use over time; the other two belonged to the last decades of the sixth century, containing a male (Tomba del Kottabos) and female (Tomba dei Vasi del Pittore di Micali) burial, respectively. Given their contemporaneity, it is possible that the deceased were husband and wife. Their buri-als both contained rich assemblages, complete with utensils and other bronzes; objects for male or female use as appropriate (weapons vs. cosmetic items); and an assortment of Attic and Etruscan vases.

Among the six Athenian vessels with figural deco-ration found in the Tomba del Kottabos is a large red-figure eye cup (figs. 11, 12), 34.4 cm in diameter, attributed to Oltos on the basis of style, decoration, and tondo inscription (“kalos Mem[m]non,” frequent in the painter’s repertoire).194 One of the exterior sides includes the only known image of Odysseus on an eye cup (see fig. 11): the hero rides beneath a ram, an iconographic abbreviation of the escape from Poly-phemos.195 Odysseus and the ram appear on approxi-mately 50 Athenian vases, most Late Archaic in date; many made their way to Italy in antiquity, including two Little Master cups that have Vulci as their prov-enance.196 The scene can also be found in Etruscan art, most notably an orientalizing ivory pyxis from the Pa-nia necropolis of Chiusi.197 The latter demonstrates the

193 For a description of the tomb (including a plan) and catalogue of its contents, see Moretti Sgubini 2001, 220–21, 230–39. See also Reusser (2003, 172–74) and Paleothodoros (2009, 48–51) for general discussion. The tomb assemblage was newly installed in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in 2010, together with that of the neighboring Tomba dei Vasi del Pittore di Micali.

194 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131420 (Moretti Sgubini 2001, 233–34, cat. no. III.B.7.5). ARV 2 records 35 cups by Oltos with kalos inscriptions refer-encing an individual named Memnon. Many of these cups have Vulci as their documented provenance.

195 For Odysseus and Polyphemos in Greek art, see, e.g., Bu-itron and Cohen 1992, 31–73. For discussion of Odysseus and the ram specifically, see Giles-Watson 2007.

196 Little Master cups from Vulci with Odysseus and the ram: Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 2418 (BAPD, no. 31944); Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, inv. no. GR45.1864/G67 (BAPD, no. 3706; CVA Cambridge 1 [Great Britain 6], 25, pl. 19).

197 The pyxis, which dates to the late seventh to early sixth century B.C.E., is at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in

early popularity of the Odysseus myth in Etruria, where the hero was known as Uthuze or Uthste.198 Oltos’ eye cup contains a further elaboration of the motif in which Odysseus carries a sword as he escapes. A similar representation appears on a black-figure column krat-er attributed to the Sappho Painter, but this cup may

Florence (Bonaudo 2010, 24, figs. 12, 13).198 For the popularity of Odysseus in Etruria, see, e.g., de

Grummond 2006, 196–97, 202 (with references); Bonaudo 2010.

fig. 11. Attic eye cup by Oltos, from Vulci. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131420 (© Soprint-endenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).

fig. 12. Attic eye cup by Oltos, from Vulci. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131420 (© Soprint-endenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).



be earlier.199 The sword proclaims Odysseus’ heroic status and may also prefigure the sacrifice of the ram to Zeus, which is mentioned in the Odyssey (9.547–55).

Like the other tombs discussed above, the Tomba del Kottabos contained many items associated with banqueting. The five additional Athenian vessels in-clude a second red-figure cup, one larger and two smaller black-figure neck amphoras, and a black-figure hydria. Also in the tomb were two Type C black-glazed Attic cups, a large Etruscan bucchero kyathos, a so-called Samian transport amphora, assorted bronze utensils, and a tall bronze object interpreted by the ex-cavators as a kottabos stand for drinking games.200 Both the shape and decoration of the Oltos cup render it appropriate for this assemblage, even though it was likely too large for actual drinking. While the motif of Odysseus and the ram on sympotic/banqueting vessels on the one hand celebrates the hero’s metis, on the other it also warns of the dangers of overindulgence; the viewer knows that Polyphemos’ drunkenness led to his blindness.201 Oltos may have intended an ele-ment of humor with this particular cup—two eyes to Polyphemos’ lost one.

Oltos’ eye cup would have likely had eschatologi-cal meaning for its Etruscan viewer, with the escape from the Cyclops serving as a metaphor for overcom-ing obstacles and, by extension, safe passage into the afterlife. On the Pania pyxis cited above, Odysseus’ es-cape in the upper register is juxtaposed with a chariot procession below, both signifying the journey of the deceased.202 The possibility that those who selected objects for the Tomba del Kottabos read the scene this way is bolstered by the inclusion of two Attic vases de-picting the underworld, both connected to Herakles’ final labor.203 Herakles himself appears on the black-

199 For the black-figure, white-ground column krater by the Sappho Painter, ca. 510–500 B.C.E., from a tomb at Locri (Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, inv. no. B32), see ABV, 507, no. 57; BAPD, no. 305504; Beazley Addenda 2 126; Co-hen 2006, 203–5, cat. no. 54. The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University acquired a black-figure column krater with a similar subject (inv. no. 2002.28.1). The Oltos cup is dated to ca. 520–510 B.C.E. in Moretti Sgubini 2001.

200 Ambrosini (2013, 26) agrees with this identification of the object and discusses kottaboi in Etruria (24–30).

201 Cf. Cohen (2006, 204), who discusses the same motif on the Sappho Painter’s krater.

202 See, e.g., Torelli 2002, 50–3.203 One was a black-figure amphora, attributed to the Lea-

gros Group, ca. 510–500 B.C.E. (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131423 [Moretti Sgubini 2001, 230–21, cat. no. III.B.7.2]). The other was a black-figure hydria, attrib-uted to the Priam Painter, ca. 510 B.C.E. (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131422 [Moretti Sgubini 2001, 230, cat. no. III.B.7.1]). For Herakles on vases by the Priam Painter, including their reception in Etruria, see Moon 1983.

figure hydria attributed to the Priam Painter, cap-turing Kerberos under the watchful gazes of Athena at left and Hades and Persephone in their palace at right. The hydria’s shoulder scene depicts a warrior’s departure in a chariot surrounded by other soldiers and a seated youth. The black-figure neck amphora, meanwhile, presents an unusual scene of Hermes, Kerberos, and Hades. Judging from his departing pose and upraised hand, perhaps Hermes has brought Kerberos back to the underworld after Herakles’ suc-cessful presentation of the beast to Eurystheus. Such a scene would have positive connotations for overcom-ing death, as it makes clear that Herakles safely left the underworld. As for Odysseus, he, too, visits the edge of the underworld and departs safely, although Oltos’ eye cup does not depict that scene. The escape from the Cyclops’ cave can be read on the vase, as it can in the Odyssey, as its own narrative of katabasis and a prefiguration of the nekyia episode.204

A grazing horse appears on the other side of the eye cup’s exterior, while the tondo features an ithyphallic satyr running and carrying a wineskin (see fig. 12). Ol-tos’ satyr finds good company elsewhere in the tomb, for Dionysian themes abound, especially images of sa-tyrs. A second ithyphallic satyr crouches in the tondo of the tomb’s other red-figure cup, while two satyrs with kitharas join Dionysos on the reverse of the Kerberos amphora.205 A satyr and maenad appear on one of the small black-figure amphoras attributed to the Painter of Oxford 216, Dionysos and a maenad on the oth-er.206 As Paleothodoros has observed with regard to the tomb’s assemblage, the proliferation of satyrs is “hardly

For Attic hydriae at Vulci, see Brunori 2006. The discovery of the Tomba del Kottabos cautions scholars of Attic vases not to assume hydriae were placed only in the tombs of Etruscan women. It is worth noting a black-figure oinochoe with Her-akles and Kerberos in the neighboring Tomba dei Vasi del Pittore di Micali (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131319 [Moretti Sgubini 2001, 224, cat. no. III.B.6.4]).

204 A black-figure oinochoe with Odysseus beneath a ram was found in the tomb of a young woman at Vulci, the Tom-ba della Collana (Tomb A7/1998) (Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131395 [Moretti Sgubini 2001, 244–45, cat. no. III.B.8.6, pl. 18]). Odysseus’ visit to the edge of the underworld (the nekyia), meanwhile, was represented on the walls of the fourth-century Tomb of Orcus at Tarquinia (Serra Ridgway 2004–2006, 128–29).

205 On the tomb’s other red-figure cup (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 131421), see Moretti Sgubini 2001, 234, cat. no. III.B.7.6.

206 Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. nos. 131424, 131425 (Moretti Sgubini 2001, 232–33, cat. nos. III.B.7.3, III.B.7.4). Inv. no. 131424 includes Dionysos and a maenad on one side, two soldiers on the other. Inv. no. 131425 depicts a maenad and satyr on one side, a maenad and kom-ast(?) on the other.



a coincidence.”207 Satyrs can be considered part of the larger Dionysian thiasos with the god’s dual connection to wine and the afterworld; we have already seen them on two eye cups in Tomb LXXIX and the eye cup of Tomb 47. Likely multivalent in meaning, satyrs evoke celebration while also being liminal creatures between this world and the next.208 They seem to have served apotropaic functions for the Etruscans, their heads decorating terracotta antefixes on temple simas—for example, on the Portonaccio temple at Veii, as noted earlier. It is possible that the blatant eroticism of satyrs, as displayed on the two cups of the Tomba del Kottabos, had its own apotropaic function within the context of an Etruscan tomb; Holloway argued such a meaning for the hetero- and homosexual erotic couplings in the Tomba dei Tori at Tarquinia.209

Although the Tomba del Kottabos is the focus of this article because of its Attic eye cup, one must again emphasize the inclusion of an Etruscan amphora with eyes (see fig. 6) in the adjoining chamber, the so-called Tomba dei Vasi del Pittore di Micali (Tomb A2/1998), possibly occupied by the man’s wife.210 Paleothodoros has argued that modern scholars should not assume Etruscan viewers thought Attic vases superior, given the coexistence of the latter with Etruscan black- figure vases in known tomb assemblages.211 Similarly, we should presume that Etruscan eye vessels—al-though represented by shapes other than cups—would have been integrated into Vulcian tomb groups in ways similar to the Attic examples and often side by side with Attic vases. To an Etruscan viewer, in other words, it may not have mattered if the vessel carrying the eyes was Attic, Etruscan, or Chalcidian ware from South Italy, especially at Vulci, where all three types were readily available.

General Remarks on the Vulcian TombsExamination of these four Vulcian tombs with

Athenian eye cups encourages some preliminary ob-servations. First, three of the four tombe a cassone can be identified as belonging to male occupants, and

207 Paleothodoros 2009, 50.208 These interpretations are often presented as “either/

or.” Spivey (1988, 16–17) talks about the satyrs on the Micali Painter’s vases as being liminal, transitional creatures and at-tributes an eschatological dimension to them in that respect, while Strandberg Olofsson (1996) associates them more with celebration in a broader sense. The two are not, however, mutually exclusive. For the liminality of satyrs as depicted on Etruscan temple decoration, see Izzet 2001, 193–94.

209 Holloway 1986, 448–49.210 Supra n. 83–4.211 Paleothodoros 2011, esp. 40 (noting that Etruscan and

Attic vases frequently appear together in Vulcian tombe a cas-sone), 66–71.

Tomb LXXIX likely also had a male burial inside. This is consistent with the general tendency at Vulci and elsewhere in Etruria for kylikes to be associated with male burials.212 In Etruscan funerary art, including Tar-quinian tomb paintings and Chiusine funerary reliefs, kylikes are predominantly held by men.213 The meager epigraphic evidence provides further support, as two Athenian eye cups with proprietary inscriptions both feature masculine family names. One of these, discov-ered at Vulci and now in Munich (diam. 28 cm), has images of Dionysos on its exterior and the retrograde genitive inscription “putinas” (of Putina) on its foot.214 The second, a bilingual eye cup (diam. 33.5 cm) for-merly in a Melbourne private collection, includes the name “ariana” on its foot, a masculine family name like “putina” although in its uninflected form.215

Secondly, all four tombs included an oversized eye cup of at least 28 cm in diameter. This echoes what appears to be a taste or need for larger kylikes in Etru-ria, especially at Vulci. Of the eye cups in the Vulcian corpus for which measurements have been obtained, 67% have a diameter of 25 cm or larger (96 of 144), while 43% have a diameter of 30 cm or larger (62 of 144). Seven in the latter category have diameters greater than 35 cm, including one of the bilingual eye cups from the Radicetti/1973 Tomb at Vulci, which is presumed to have had at least one male burial.216

212 Hannestad 1989, 117. An exception is a small (19 cm) black-glazed Attic kylix of Type C found in the Tomba della Collana (Tomb A7/1998), which belonged to a young woman (Moretti Sgubini 2001, 247, cat. no. III.B.8.12). For an Athe-nian eye cup (diam. 29.8 cm) that belonged to a Greek wom-an, with a Greek inscription saying “I am Melosa’s prize. She won the girls’ carding contest” (New York, Metropolitan Mu-seum of Art, inv. no. 44.11.1), said to be from Taranto, see BAPD, no. 13330; Milne 1945.

213 An exception is the woman holding a kylix in a banquet-ing scene from the fourth-century Tomba Golini II at Orvieto.

214 Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 2054 (CVA Mu-nich 13 [Germany 77], 65–6, pl. 34 [with further references for the inscription]).

215 Connor 1996 (see esp. 368–69 for the inscription). I thank Rex Wallace for confirming that these are masculine family names and cannot refer to women.

216 For the Radicetti/1973 Tomb cup, see supra n. 146. The others are Berlin, Antikensammlung, inv. nos. F2048 (ABV, 262, no. 48; BAPD, no. 302280), F2049 (ABV, 390; BAPD, no. 302909; Beazley Addenda 2 103); Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. no. 335 (ARV 2, 44, no. 89; 67, no. 8; 112, no. 1; BAPD, no. 200296; Beazley Addenda 2 160); Compiègne, Musée Antoine Vivenel, inv. no. 1105 (ARV 2, 41, no. 24; 161, no. 2; BAPD, no. 200232); Munich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 2080 (ABV, 256, no. 22; BAPD, no. 302231; Beazley Addenda 2 67; Paralipo-mena 114); Rouen, Musée Départemental des Antiquités, inv. no. 450B (ABV, 231, no. 12; BAPD, no. 301243; Beazley Adden-da 2 60). Of those eye cups for which I have been unable to ob-tain measurements, more than a dozen are bilingual kylikes likely to be at least 25 cm in diameter.



Although impractical for drinking and possibly con-nected instead to display and/or ritual, the eye cups in each case formed part of an assemblage that em-phasized banqueting. It is tempting to suggest that the use and deposition of oversized cups (meaning cups larger than 25 cm in diameter and especially those larger than 30) relate in some way to the revitaliza-tion and even heroization of the deceased.217 The “of Charu” inscription on the oversized bilingual eye cup discussed earlier, perhaps also from Vulci, suggests that deities were thought to participate in banquets; this might also explain some of the larger cups.218

Decoration is at least as important as shape, not only the apotropaic eyes but also other images on each ky-lix. Five of the six eye cups (including the two smaller cups from Tomb LXXIX) feature either the god Dio-nysos or members of his thiasos—namely, satyrs (see figs. 7, 8, 12). This is consistent not only with the preva-lence of Dionysian imagery on Attic eye cups generally but also among Attic eye cups found at Vulci: bearing in mind the fragmentary condition of some cups, 64 of the 158 in the corpus (41%) include Dionysos and/or a satyr shown at least once.219 The popularity of these motifs at Vulci may reflect local veneration of the god as well as his eschatological associations. Heroic status forms another important theme, as illustrated by the figure of Odysseus on the Oltos cup from the Tomba del Kottabos (see fig. 11), the profile busts on the cup from Tomb 50 (see figs. 9, 10), and even the horse-men (Dioscuri?) from one of the smaller eye cups in Tomb LXXIX.220 The imagery of the Athenian eye cups meshes well with other Greek and Etruscan vases found in the tombs; thoughtful choices were clearly made by the deceased’s family members.

217 Tsingarida (forthcoming) suggests as much for any cups larger than 35 cm. For the heroization of the deceased and the ancestors, see, e.g., Damgaard Andersen 1993; Tuck 1994; Camporeale 2009.

218 Also discussed in Tsingarida (forthcoming). Cf. the Ol-tos cup with inscription to the Dioscuri (supra n. 163), which measures 52 cm in diameter, and the representation of Aita and Phersipnei feasting with the deceased in Tomba Golini I at Orvieto (supra n. 114).

219 The total percentage rises slightly if one factors in kom-asts/symposiasts and/or what seem to be maenads without Dionysos and/or a satyr present elsewhere on the vase. I have not included these, however, since it is not always clear wheth-er a female figure is a maenad or nymph, nor is a komast al-ways easily distinguished.

220 In the corpus of 158 eye cups from Vulci, 13 have a rec-ognizable male mythological hero represented at least once (8%). All are Herakles save one depiction each of Theseus and Odysseus. However, 37 cups have a soldier/warrior rep-resented at least once (23%, including hoplites, horsemen, and figures in chariots), some of whom may have been under-stood as mythological heroes.

It is worth noting what is not present in this group of tombs or at Vulci in any great numbers: kraters.221 This should provide a note of caution, for as discussed previously, Etruscan banquets were not synonymous with Greek symposia. In an attempt to reconcile this shortage with the expectation that Vulcians must have imitated Greek sympotic practice, it has been suggest-ed that bronze kraters were manufactured locally, but none has ever been found.222 It has also been proposed that the large numbers of Attic hydriae discovered in Vulcian tombs—including Tomb 50 and the Tomba del Kottabos discussed here—were employed as mix-ing bowls in a form of local taste, but the closed shape of hydriae makes that difficult to imagine.223 By plac-ing eye cups and other vessels associated with drink-ing and the storage of wine in tombs, the deceased’s families were evoking local banqueting practices, but they were not providing their loved ones with replica-tions of Greek symposia. The presence of eye cups or any other kylikes in tombs at Vulci should therefore not automatically be taken as signs of hellenization or even emulation of Greek customs.224

Eye Cups in Tombs Beyond VulciStudy of Athenian eye cups in Etruscan tombs out-

side Vulci presents a challenge. Documented assem-blages containing them are less common, and many come from sites where tombe a camera—that is, cham-ber tombs with multiple burials (both male and fe-male) interred over a long period of time—were the norm. It becomes difficult to discern when and with

221 Hannestad (1989, 125) tabulates shapes of black-figure vases from Vulci based on the Beazley catalogues and lists one krater among 962 pots. She counts four red-figure krat-ers from Vulci in Beazley, out of 493 vessels (Hannestad 1989, 127).

222 Spivey (2007, 241) notes that no metal kraters have been found in Etruria, despite the representation of what seem to be metal kraters in Tarquinian tomb paintings.

223 On hydriae used as mixing bowls, see, e.g., Reusser 2003, 173; 2004, 151; Paleothodoros 2007a, 169. Cf. Osborne (2007a, 87) on imports to southern France: “In the absence of kraters, some sign is needed that large open vessels of some other kind were available for the mixing of wine before one leaps from the presence of drinking vessels to the presence of the symposium” (emphasis added). We cannot rule out the possibility that oversized kylikes were themselves used as mix-ing vessels, but no pictorial or textual evidence supports such a claim.

224 At the very least, the situation should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis: as noted above, Tomb 47 included a large bronze stamnos, two bronze ladles, and a sieve, which does come closer to Greek sympotic custom. Even then, the stam-nos (even in ceramic form produced by Attic workshops) seems to have been an Etruscan shape, not Greek, and the inclusion of small plates and remains of food suggests a “ban-quet” rather than a “symposion.”



whom specific vessels were placed, unlike the closed contexts of the mostly single-burial tombe a cassone of Vulci. At Cerveteri (Caere), the popularity of eye cups is attested by the more than a dozen Attic examples known to come from there and the 30 of Chalcidian manufacture. Considering Cerveteri’s coastal position and direct contact with Greek traders, here one sees the competition between traders in the two wares to reach the local market. The number of Athenian eye cups, however, may be severely underestimated, dem-onstrating the problems of unprovenanced material. As noted earlier, Villard suggested that fragmentary vases in the Louvre from the Campana collection with inventory numbers higher than 10226 come from Cer-veteri.225 If this is correct, then we can add to the totals 38 black-figure eye cups, six bilingual eye cups, nine red-figure eye cups, one black-figure hydria with eye decoration, and one black-figure volute krater with eye decoration.226 This would give Cerveteri more eye vessels than every site in Etruria save Vulci and would show that eye cups were sent there through their en-tire period of manufacture. It would also reveal even stronger competition between Athenian and South Italian workshops (and the traders who worked with them) for local business in eye cups.

Some documented Cerveteri tombs contained eye cups, although their assemblages remain largely un-published. Tomb 3 of the so-called Maroi tumulus in the Banditaccia necropolis, which was excavated in 1948 and seems to have been used for much of the sixth century B.C.E., featured a variety of local and imported goods, including a black-figure Attic eye cup with a sphinx and youth between the eyes on one side, and a youth and maiden between the eyes on the other.227 The large and well-supplied Tomba dei Vasi Greci in Tumulus 2 of the Banditaccia necropolis, excavated in the early 20th century and containing artifacts dating from the early sixth century through ca. 450 B.C.E., not surprisingly included several eye vessels among its large number of Attic imports. Among those in the princi-pal chamber was a bilingual eye cup with birds in the tondo and a “nose” on the exterior between the eyes.228

At first glance, it might appear that Attic eye cups were less prevalent at tombs in Tarquinia compared

225 Villard 2006.226 This figure is based on examination of CVA, the Beazley

catalogues, and BAPD.227 The cup is unpublished; it is displayed in the Museo Na-

zionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia but not included in BAPD.228 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no.

20800 (ARV 2, 41, no. 37 [“standard eye cups”]; BAPD, no. 200245). Other eye vessels from this tomb are displayed in the Villa Giulia but are unpublished and not included in the Bea-zley Archive online database.

with Cerveteri and certainly Vulci, for few can be linked to the necropoleis there. Many tombe a camera, however, had been plundered before formal excava-tions began in the late 19th century.229 It would be a mistake to think Athenian eye cups were not im-ported into Tarquinia in great numbers because of the small numbers that survive today, for evidence exists otherwise. Several fragmentary black-figure eye cups have been discovered in the Monumental Complex of the Pian di Civita, including the cup cit-ed earlier and found within a cistern, as well as the sanctuary at Ara della Regina.230 Significant numbers of fragmentary black-figure eye cups and a few frag-mentary bilingual examples have been uncovered in the sanctuary at Tarquinia’s port of Gravisca.231 Along with the many other cups found here, they were used for libations, offerings, and perhaps feast-ing by the mixed Greek and Etruscan population who used the sanctuary; the black-figure examples whose diameters can be reconstructed were all smaller than 25 cm across, and many were closer to 20 cm, perfect for drinking. Given the influx of Attic eye cups into the area, it can be assumed that they and other vessels with eyes also formed part of Tarquinian tomb assem-blages, even if the degree of their presence and their contexts cannot be assessed. An interesting specimen formerly on the Paris art market and currently in a pri-vate collection—its provenance is given as Tarquinia, and it is likely from a tomb there—features warriors on the exterior between the eyes and four ships along the inner rim, along with a Gorgoneion in the ton-do.232 Measuring 30.2 cm in diameter (37.5 with the handles), its size compares to that of many eye cups found at Vulci.

It may not be coincidental that the inland sites that seem to have imported the most eye vessels had trade contacts with Vulci and likely received their Attic vases via that city instead of directly from Greek or other

229 An exception is the black-figure amphora with eyes (Tar-quinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense, inv. no. RC2800), which was found in a plundered chamber tomb and noted in Helbig 1881b, 366–67.

230 On the Monumental Complex, see Bonghi Jovino 2001, 404–6. On the Ara della Regina, see supra n. 72.

231 On black-figure eye cups at Gravisca, see Iacobazzi 2004, 233–48 (with an additional few fragments published in Fiorini and Fortunelli 2009, 306–7, 315, fig. 6). For likely bilingual ex-amples, see Huber 1999, 28–9, cat. nos. 4–11.

232 It is mentioned by Jordan (1988, 135, no. 220bis) but published fully in Oakley 1994. Oakley (1994, 17 n. 58) lists three other black-figure eye cups with ships around the interior. He further suggests that this cup was potted by Nikosthenes, whose ties with the Etruscan export market are well acknowledged (see Tosto 1999).



traders. Orvieto (Volsinii) was a popular destination; finds of eye cups and other eye vessels are known from both tombs and sanctuaries there. Recent excavations of the Campo della Fiera sanctuary just outside the city have revealed “un gran numero” of black-figure eye cups, a few published in preliminary reports.233 Many have Dionysian decoration appropriate for a shrine that some scholars have identified as belonging at least in part to that god.234 More than 20 Attic eye cups are known to have come from late 19th-century excava-tions in the Crocifisso del Tufo necropolis, along with a small selection of other shapes.235 All but one of these cups are black-figure, and most are of lesser quality, the exception being a bilingual eye cup attributed to Epiktetos.236 At 32.2 cm in diameter, the latter is also one of the few eye cups from this site that is larger than average. Another is a cup attributed to the Group of Walters 48.42; measuring 31.4 cm in diameter, its size and Dionysos-head decoration are reminiscent of the cup from Tomb LXXIX at Vulci discussed above.237 Most Attic vessels from the Mancini excavations that began in 1872 are not documented in terms of mor-tuary assemblages. Both these eye cups are listed in Körte’s 1877 report on the Orvieto necropoleis, but as he himself lamented, he did not have information about the finds in individual tombs.238

The so-called Tomba del Guerriero at Orvieto is an important exception discussed by Helbig in its original publication and reevaluated by Maggiani.239 Discovered

233 Bizzarri 2012, 81–2, 93–4, cat. nos. 9–11, figs. 10–12.234 Bizzarri 2012, 88.235 Worth noting for its unusual subject is a black-figure

olpe with Dionysian theme that includes satyrs carrying eyes (Berkeley, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, inv. no. 8.3379) (ABV, 436, no. 2; 445, no. 11; BAPD, no. 320471; Beazley Addenda 2 112; Paralipomena 188). Twelve of the black-figure eye cups are catalogued in Wójcik (1989) and are in the Museo Claudio Faina.

236 Orvieto, Museo Claudio Faina, inv. no. 2581 (ARV 2, 45, no. 100; 70, no. 1; BAPD, no. 200307; Beazley Addenda 2 160; Körte 1877, 132, cat. no. 21; Paleothodoros 2004a, 145, cat. no. 5). Paleothodoros (2004a, 121–27) notes that the majority of cups from Epiktetos’ earliest period and a large number of his total output were sent to Etruria.

237 Orvieto, Museo Claudio Faina, inv. no. 2590 (BAPD, no. 8124; Wójcik 1989, 121–22, cat. no. 53). One of the eye cups recently found in the Campo della Fiera sanctuary has been attributed to the same workshop (Bizzarri 2012, 93, cat. no. 9, fig. 10).

238 For inv. no. 2590 in the Museo Claudio Faina in Orvieto, see Körte 1877, 130, cat. no. 13. For the Epiktetos cup, see Körte 1877, 132, cat. no. 21.

239 Helbig 1881c, 263–73; Maggiani 2005. It is discussed more briefly in Reusser 2002, 2:168–70. Another exception is Tomb SG 01, whose contents were recently published in Brus-chetti 2012, 52–63, 227–34, pls. 9–16. Its eye cup (Bruschetti 2012, 53, cat. no. 1) measures 22 cm in diameter, has Diony-

in 1880, it included a Chalcidizing eye cup in its cor-redo. As both Helbig and Maggiani observed, the dif-ficulty with this two-chamber tomb is not only its use over a lengthy period of time (ca. 530–450 B.C.E.), which makes it hard to determine which Attic vases were deposited when, but also that it seems to have been disturbed in Roman times. Maggiani isolates a group of contemporary black-figure Attic vases and suggests that they formed part of the original assem-blage and that they can be linked specifically to the tomb’s eponymous warrior, Larth Cuperes Aranthia, whose inscribed, head-shaped helmeted stone cippus marks a highlight of local sculpture. As seen in the Vulcian tombe a cassone, the group of Athenian vases forms a cohesive assemblage in both shape and sub-ject. Four amphoras were included—all with some manner of military subject—along with a column krater (obverse: nuptial procession; reverse: combat scene); a top-band stemless cup with a horseman on each side; a black-figure cup (diam. 29 cm) potted by Pamphaios with a Gorgoneion in the tondo; and the Chalcidizing eye cup, also 29 cm in diameter, which features a nose and satyr ears on each side of its ex-terior.240 The addition of the latter to the eyes made this and similar cups more akin to the satyr faces on temple antefixes.

The Faliscan site of Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana) is another inland site where Athenian eye vessels were well received, probably via Vulci.241 Exca-vations here were also conducted in the late 19th cen-tury; the findspots of Attic vases were noted and later recorded in CVA, even though many tombs were not

sian decoration, and dates to ca. 520–510 B.C.E. The tomb assemblage consists mainly of bucchero vessels and local im-pasto ware.

240 Formerly in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale at Orvi-eto, today in the Museo Civico Archeologico of Perugia (the cippus remains in Orvieto): amphora attributed to the Swing Painter, inv. no. 456 (ABV, 308, no. 67; BAPD, no. 301547; Maggiani 2005, 54, cat. no. C501, figs. 32, 33); amphora re-lated to the Antimenes Painter, inv. no. 578 (ABV, 281, no. 13; BAPD, no. 320233; Maggiani 2005, cat. no. C500, figs. 38, 39); column krater possibly by the Bucci Painter, inv. no. 587 (Mag-giani 2005, 53, cat. no. C499, figs. 40, 41); amphora by the Ba-reiss Painter, inv. no. 577 (BAPD, no. 1115; Maggiani 2005, 50, cat. no. C465, figs. 36, 37); amphora by the Affecter, inv. no. 594 (ABV, 242, no. 32; BAPD, no. 301320; Beazley Addenda 2 61; Maggiani 2005, 49–50, cat. no. C460, figs. 34, 35); top-band stemless cup, inv. no. 582 (Maggiani 2005, 49, cat. no. C457, figs. 46, 47); cup by Pamphaios, inv. no. 586 (ABV, 236, no. 1; BAPD, no. 301283; Maggiani 2005, 49, cat. no. C458, figs. 44, 45); Chalcidizing cup, inv. no. 580 (ABV, 204, no. 10; BAPD, no. 302626; Maggiani 2005, 49, cat. no. C456, figs. 42, 43).

241 See Ambrosini (2005) for the diffusion of Attic vases in the Ager Faliscus.



fully published. The site is not Etruscan, but Falerii’s tombs are worth mentioning because of the affinity to Etruscan funerary practice. Among 19 Athenian eye cups from Falerii, 16 have known findspots in 10 differ-ent chamber tombs of the Celle, Penna, and Valsiarosa necropoleis.242 Most are black-figure, with eight having diameters of 25 cm or larger. Multiple Attic eye cups were found in Tombs LXXV (Tomb 146 in CVA) and LXXX (Tomb 147 in CVA) of the Penna necropolis (two in each), and in the Celle necropolis, Tombs LXXIV (n=2), LXXXVII (n=3), and XCIX (n=2). All the eye cups were found with other Athenian vases, as well as local ware and additional objects.

Of particular interest is Tomb LXXIV of the Celle necropolis (Tomb LIV in the CVA), which included two Athenian eye cups in addition to a Chalcidian one. The Chalcidian cup, measuring 27.2 cm in diameter, is typical of that type in having a “nose” between the eyes.243 The smaller Athenian eye cup, 21.2 cm in di-ameter, features Herakles and Apollo struggling for the tripod on one side between the eyes, and on the other, Theseus fighting the Minotaur.244 The second Athenian eye cup, meanwhile, surpasses all others known from Falerii, and most known from any site, in measuring 45 cm in diameter (fig. 13).245 Attributed to the Leagros Group, its exterior features a familiar scene of a seated Dionysos flanked by dancing mae-nads on each side, between the eyes. The interior, however, is highly unusual: the tondo includes a sym-posiast, likely Dionysos himself, reclining on a kline with a barbiton in his hand and a goat beneath, but bands of ivy circumscribe the tondo to fill the remain-der of the interior. The eye cup’s Dionysian themes are echoed by an Athenian black-figure amphora from the tomb with Dionysos on a mule on one side, together with satyrs and a maenad, and a komos pro-cession of young and old nude men on the other.246 These four Greek vases were joined by assorted vessels in bucchero and impasto, plus a single Protocorin-thian aryballos.247 The only bronzes were a group of

242 See Ambrosini (2005, 307–8 nn. 43–7, 50; 309 n. 53) for the eye cups; see also listings in CVA Villa Giulia 3 (Italy 3).

243 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 774 (BAPD, no. 9004305; CVA Villa Giulia 3 [Italy 3], 1, pl. 1).

244 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 775 (BAPD, no. 13058; CVA Villa Giulia 3 [Italy 3], 21, pls. 37, 38).

245 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 773 (ABV, 381, no. 298; 696; BAPD, no. 302379; Beazley Addenda 2

101; CVA Villa Giulia 1 [Italy 1], 7–8, pl. 11; Paralipomena 164; Isler-Kerényi 2007, 186, figs. 114, 115).

246 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 772 (BAPD, no. 13019; CVA Villa Giulia 1 [Italy 1], 4, pl. 2).

247 The complete assemblage is installed in the Museo Nazi-

small disks and parts of what may have been a wooden diphros. A pair of sandals completes the finds. Shar-ing an apotropaic function with the three eye cups is a tuff bust of a sphinx, which may have stood outside the tomb, guarding it.248

Sites in northern Etruria have yielded fewer Athe-nian eye cups than those in the south or in the Ager Faliscus. The 19th-century excavations of the necrop-oleis at Chiusi (Clusium) are poorly documented, so that eye cups known to have been found there can-not be contextualized. Worth mentioning, however, is the innovative bilingual eye cup attributed to the Andokides and Lysippides Painters and signed by An-dokides as potter.249 At 43.3 cm in diameter and with its exterior decoration of warriors and Scythian archers, it would have been a handsome grave gift. Interestingly enough, additional evidence for eyes used as apotro-paia in Etruscan art comes from Chiusi: in the paint-ings of the Tomba della Scimmia, the seated female figure with parasol—usually identified as the deceased watching funerary games and spectacle—rests her feet on a stool decorated with a pair of eyes.250 On multiple examples of Chiusine bucchero oinochoai, found in tombs at Chiusi itself and at other inland sites, single

onale Etrusco di Villa Giulia’s Falerii gallery; the tomb is there identified as Tomb LXXIV.

248 The finds in this tomb range in date from the late sev-enth through the sixth centuries; it is unclear how many burials were originally here and when certain objects were de-posited, as a single assemblage or at different points.

249 Palermo, Museo Archeologico A. Salinas, inv. no. 2051/1448 (ABV, 253, no. 4; 256, no. 21; ARV 2, 5, no. 14; 37, no. 1; 1617; BAPD, no. 200014; Beazley Addenda 2 66, 150; Para-lipomena 114, 321; Barbagli and Iozzo 2007, 154–55, cat. no. 57 [A. Villa]). The tondo is not preserved. Other eye cups found at Chiusi are listed in Iozzo 2006, 130–31.

250 Steingräber 2006, 121–22.

fig. 13. Attic eye cup attributed to the Leagros Group, from Falerii. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 773 (© Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale).



or pairs of prominent eyes were incised on the neck after production.251

A small number of black-figure eye cups were found in better-recorded, 19th-century excavations at Bo-logna (Felsina) farther north. One of these, from Tomb 9 of the Giardini Margherita necropolis, was discovered alongside a black-bodied volute krater with eye decoration on its frieze, the eyes framing scenes of Dionysos at banquet.252 Another, from Tomb 96b of the Arnoaldi necropolis, also accompanied a frag-mentary black-bodied volute krater with two registers of black-figure decoration, showing Herakles and the lion and warriors with a chariot.253 This latter eye cup, 28.2 cm in diameter, shows on one side between the eyes a youth (Dionysos?) reclining with a drink-ing horn under trees, and on the other side warriors with a chariot.254 These two vessels were found with a black-figure olpe and neck amphora, but because they were discovered in a tomb with objects dating from the later fifth century that showed signs of hav-ing been previously disturbed—multiple burials in a single tomb not being typical practice at Bologna—it

251 Examples from Chiusi include inv. nos. 1814,0704.459 and 1814,0704.460 in the British Museum in London. An example of a Chiusine oinochoe with incised eye found in a documented tomb context comes from Tomb K136 of the Crocifisso del Tufo necropolis at Orvieto (Bruschetti 2012, 142, cat. no. 10, pl. 295b–e). This latter oinochoe features feline decoration around its body.

252 See Brizio (1889, 207–8) for a description of the tomb and its vases. The cremated remains of the deceased were placed on the floor near the volute krater. For the volute krat-er with eyes (Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. 59), see BAPD, no. 13038; Gaunt 2002, 455–56, cat. no. 52. Cf. one volute krater with eyes known from Cerveteri, noted above, and four black-bodied volute kraters from Taranto with eye decoration included on the neck friezes, presumably owned by Greeks there: Taranto, Museo Archeologico Nazio-nale, inv. nos. 20334 (ABV, 195, no. 3; BAPD, no. 302550; Bea-zley Addenda 2 52; Gaunt 2002, 498, cat. no. 217), 20335 (ABV, 195, no. 4; BAPD, no. 302551; Gaunt 2002, 498, cat. no. 218), 20336 (BAPD, no. 10153; Gaunt 2002, 499, cat. no. 219), and 4596 (ABV, 195, no. 2; BAPD, no. 302549; Beazley Addenda 2 52; Gaunt 2002, 497–98, cat. no. 216).

253 The krater is in Bologna (Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. 18136), with an additional fragment at Reggio Emilia (Museo “G. Chierici” di Paletnologia, inv. no. S56/220). For references, see BAPD, no. 4800; Gaunt 2002, 456, cat. no. 53; Macellari 2002, 203, cat. no. 6 (with numerous further refer-ences). See Gozzadini (1881, 19–20) for a description of the tomb and Macellari (2002, 199–207) for a full account of the finds and analysis. Since it is thought by Macellari and oth-ers that the four black-figure, late sixth-century vases do not belong originally to this tomb (Tomb 96), it is not known whether the deceased with whom they were placed was in-humed or cremated.

254 Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. 17951 (BAPD, no. 13028; Macellari 2002, 205, cat. no. 11).

has been suggested that this group of four Attic vases originally belonged to an assemblage elsewhere.

Tomb 80 of the Arnoaldi necropolis at Bologna, situated near the “strada sepolcrale” that ran through the cemetery, included a black-figure Attic eye cup, an amphora, and an olpe, together with bronze vessels, bronze remains of what was almost certainly a wooden stool or diphros, three bone dice, a group of colored glass disks like those known from tombs at Vulci, and five bronze fibulae.255 Brizio’s 1879 account says that the cremated remains of the deceased were found on the floor; it has been suggested that they were origi-nally placed atop the wooden stool and wrapped in a cloth pinned with the fibulae, given the remains of fabric still adhering to one of the furniture bosses.256 A second account states that the other goods, includ-ing the eye cup, were laid in a semicircle around the Athenian amphora.257 One side of the amphora fea-tures the arrival of Herakles at Olympos, greeted by Athena, Dionysos, and Hermes; the other, the depar-ture of warriors.258 The eye cup, only 21 cm in diameter and of sketchy draftsmanship, depicts on each side a charging warrior with pelta and spear held aloft, while the olpe shows two komasts in procession with a dog.259 The special treatment of the cremated remains is not unique in the Bolognese necropoleis but is limited to only a few tombs and may indicate an individual of special status.260

Finds of Athenian eye cups are not limited to larger sites in Etruria; they have also been discovered in more isolated quantities in smaller communities. We can highlight here the only two known instances—in Etruria or anywhere—of Athenian eye cups being con-nected with cineraria (i.e., being used as lids for cre-mation burials placed in Attic pots). Both represent

255 Macellari 2002, 165–69.256 Brizio 1879, 221–22.257 Gozzadini 1879.258 Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. 17832

(name vase of the Group of Bologna 16) (ABV, 286, no. 3; BAPD, no. 320287; Beazley Addenda 2 74; Paralipomena 125; Ma-cellari 2002, 165–66, cat. no. 1).

259 For the eye cup (Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. 17833), see BAPD, no. 13030; Macellari 2002, 166–67, cat. no. 3. For the olpe (Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, inv. no. 17834), see ABV, 449, no. 3; BAPD, no. 330153; Parali-pomena 195; Macellari 2002, 166, cat. no. 2.

260 Macellari (2002, 169) lists the following tombs in which the cremated remains seem to have been wrapped in cloth and laid either on the floor or on a piece of furniture: Tomb 85 of the Arnoaldi necropolis; Tombs 51, 206, and 318 of the Certosa necropolis; and Tomb 22 of the Giardini Margherita necropolis. The placement of tomb goods in a semicircle around a central object can also be found in Tomb 96 of the Arnoaldi necropolis and so seems to be deliberate.



the ultimate transformation of Athenian vases into fully Etruscan objects. The first, a black-figure eye cup 28.5 cm in diameter (fig. 14), comes from a tomba a pozzo, or so-called well tomb, in the Poggio della Mina– Palazzetta necropolis near Bisenzio. According to Helbig’s report of the finds in the Bullettino dell’Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, the eye cup covered an Attic black-figure column krater (diam. 28.9 cm across the mouth) holding the deceased’s remains (fig. 15).261 As at most Etruscan sites, cremation buri-als seem to have been less common at Bisenzio than inhumations in chamber tombs; this particular tomba a pozzo was found next to two others in the 1884–1885 excavations. Like a handful of other smaller Etruscan towns, Bisenzio seems to have been overrun by a larger city and its inhabitants transplanted elsewhere ca. 500 B.C.E. At the time of the late sixth-century tombe a pozzo, it was apparently most influenced by Vulci, likely also the source of its Attic imports.262

The pairing of eye cup and column krater to form a cinerary urn was carefully considered, their measure-ments making them a literal perfect fit.263 One side of the krater shows a Gigantomachy that includes a god in a chariot and Athena lunging alongside (see fig. 15), while the reverse depicts a horseman and three hoplites. It is likely that the deceased interred inside was male.264 On top of each handle are painted busts of a man and woman, perhaps interpreted by the Etruscan viewer as Dionysos/Fufluns and Ariadne or else Aita/Hades and Phersipnei/Persephone. Ivy frames each main scene and also decorates the lip of the vase. The eye cup, meanwhile, shows a nymph or maenad dancing between two satyrs on each side of the exterior between the eyes (see fig. 14), while a hare stands beneath each handle. Grapevines further frame the handles; when the cup was placed atop the krater, the vines and ivy on the two vases would have visually complemented each other. The interior of the eye cup is undecorated. The column kraters/cineraria of the neighboring tombe a pozzo had nothing acting as lids, so the choice to place an eye cup here seems

261 For the cup (Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. P300), see BAPD, no. 6841. For the krater (Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. P270), see BAPD, no. 32292 (both ex Paolozzi collection). See Helbig (1886, 23–24) for a report on the tomb and Reusser (1993) for discus-sion of archaic Attic vases in the Bisenzio necropoleis.

262 See Reusser (1993, 81–2) for a list of vases with a prov-enance of Bisenzio known at that time, including three other eye cups (one fragmentary), all from the Olmo Bello necrop-olis, and five mastoid skyphoi with eyes.

263 For Greek kraters in Etruria in general, see, e.g., Spiv-ey 2007, esp. 237–44. De la Genière (1987) discusses kraters used as ossuaries in Magna Graecia and Sicily.

264 An opinion likewise expressed in Reusser 1993, 75.

to have been a special one by the deceased’s family. It has traces of ancient repair, so perhaps the deceased owned the cup during his lifetime.265 Cup and krater together of course evoke the banquet; we can also as-sume that the apotropaic eyes were intended to pro-tect the dead within.

The other eye cup used as part of a cremation burial (see figs. 4, 16, 17) comes from the Tuscan site of Foia-no della Chiana, where more than 60 chamber tombs were excavated in 1879 by Giuseppe Cappannelli of Cortona and Giacomo Tempora of Bettolle.266 Helbig, who visited Foiano during the explorations, reported

265 Ancient repair noted in CVA Chiusi 1 (Italy 59), 18–19, pl. 26; Reusser 1993, 75.

266 For the excavations, see Giulierini 1999–2001, esp. 57–62; Fortunelli 2005, 246.

fig. 14. Attic eye cup, from Bisenzio. Chiusi, Museo Archeo-logico Nazionale, inv. no. P300 (courtesy Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana–Firenze).

fig. 15. Attic column krater, from Bisenzio. Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. P270 (courtesy Soprint-endenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana–Firenze).



that the quickly dispersed finds were dominated by Greek vases; fortunately, he was present for the dis-covery of two “tombe vergini” and described their contents in detail.267 One of these tombs consisted

267 Helbig 1879.

of two chambers, the inner containing a single inhu-mation burial and the outer six cremation burials: the oldest in a stone urn of likely Chiusine manufacture, another in a bronze secchia also likely of Chiusine manufacture, and four inside Athenian vases.268 This area, the Valdichiana, lay within Chiusi’s sphere of influence in the period under discussion and likely received Greek imports via that city. Unlike at most Etruscan sites, including others discussed here, crema-tion rather than inhumation remained the dominant rite at Chiusi and environs.

The oldest of the cremation burials placed inside an Athenian vase was kept in a black-figure, black-bodied volute krater 56 cm in height (fig. 18). According to Helbig’s eyewitness account, this was covered by a monumental black-figure eye cup in the manner of the Lysippides Painter measuring 60 cm in diameter (74 cm with the handles), the largest discussed here and one of the largest Athenian kylikes known (see figs. 4, 16, 17).269 The two vases complement each other in size, shape, and imagery, suggesting that, as with the burial at Bisenzio, the decision to place them together was thoughtfully made. The cup depicts what is likely the introduction of Herakles to Olympos on one side (see fig. 4)—Herakles approaching Athena and Hermes, with Hermes raising his hand in greet-ing—while the krater features Herakles fighting the Nemean Lion on its obverse frieze (see fig. 18). For an Etruscan viewer, the former scene would have evoked passage into the afterworld, while Herakles combating monsters similarly served as a metaphor for overcoming obstacles. The krater’s reverse frieze represents a combat scene, while the eye cup includes

268 The tomb’s contents are discussed in depth in Bundrick 2014. I thank John Oakley for the invitation to participate in the “Athenian Potters and Painters III” conference (Williams-burg, Va., 2012), where the original paper was presented.

269 Helbig 1879, 245–47. For the eye cup (Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 74624, currently on loan to the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona), see ABV, 262, no. 46; BAPD, no. 302278; Beazley Addenda 2 68; Paralipomena 117; Giulierini 1999–2001, 71–3, figs. 8–11; For-tunelli 2005, 248, cat. no. VI.112; Iozzo 2006, 125; Tsingarida (forthcoming). For the volute krater (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, inv. no. 48.29), see BAPD, no. 16188; Gaunt 2002, 453, cat. no. 42; Iozzo 2006, 125, 134, fig. 4.3; Albersmeier 2009, 276, cat. no. 83 (all with further references). Because Helbig described the krater as “un’anfora colossale” (1879, 245), it was not recognized as belonging to the Foiano tomb until recently. See Rastrelli (1998, 351), although the iden-tification does not appear in Gaunt (2002) or Albersmeier (2009). It was acquired by Henry Walters in 1902 from Don Marcello Massarenti in Rome, along with the rest of Massaren-ti’s collection. See Massarenti (1897, 45–6, cat. no. 209) for the krater, identified there as depicting “les jeux olympiques.” The eye cup, meanwhile, was acquired by the Museo Archeo-logico Nazionale in Florence in 1892.

fig. 16. Attic eye cup in the manner of the Lysippides Painter, detail of exterior under handle, from Foiano della Chiana. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 74624, on long-term loan to the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona (courtesy Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana–Firenze).

fig. 17. Attic eye cup in the manner of the Lysippides Painter, detail of Etruscan inscription on foot, from Foiano della Chiana. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 74624, on long-term loan to the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona (courtesy Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana–Firenze).



combat scenes around each of its handles, consisting of hoplites and Scythian archers (see fig. 16). Dionysos, Hermes, and a satyr appear surrounded by grapevines on the reverse of the eye cup; the last are echoed by ivy vines decorating the krater’s handles.

The shape and iconography of cup and krater pro-claim the importance of banqueting in life and death, as seen elsewhere, and suggest the deceased’s status and protection. The eye cup includes a Gorgon’s face in the tondo that would have stared down into the krater and looked after the deceased—perhaps even kept a restless spirit in place—while the lengthy, un-translatable Etruscan inscription on the cup’s foot may have contained wishes for further protection (see fig. 17).270 Adapting the eye cup for this purpose at Foiano may represent a variation on local funerary customs, given the area’s connections with Chiusi. Beginning in the seventh century, many terracotta Chiusine cinerary urns were given anthropomorphic features—a head, sometimes arms—and were deposited with banqueting vessels.271 These urns have been metaphorically com-pared to the body of the deceased.272 They fell out of fashion later in the sixth century, but the desire to revi-talize the dead persisted in Chiusine funerary art—for example, in terracotta sculpted cinerary urns of the fifth century.273 Even though turned upside down, the eye cup placed atop the krater still had the curious ef-fect of anthropomorphizing the whole. Perhaps the deceased’s family, unable to afford a pietra fetida urn carved in relief of the sort popular at Chiusi in the late sixth century, chose these vases not only for their shapes and imagery but also because their juxtaposi-tion paid homage to local mortuary tradition.

conclusionsIn a 2004 article about Attic vases in a warrior’s tomb

at Akragas, Marconi wrote:274

The public of Athenian vases . . . is generally assumed to be limited to the Athenians, and the usual account is that of vases produced in the workshops of the Kera-meikos, put on display for the citizens frequenting the nearby Agora, and sold to some local individual for a special occasion, such as a symposium. What strikes me about this account is that it usually ends in the dining room of an Athenian house.

270 Rex Wallace reported in personal communication (2011) that “there are no recognizable names, nouns, or verbs” and that “at this point there is no hope for an interpre-tation of any sort.” For a transcription of the inscription, see Fortunelli 2005, 248, cat. no. VI.112 (with further references).

271 For which see, e.g., Gempeler 1974; Damgaard Ander-sen 1993.

272 Cf. Damgaard Andersen 1993; Tuck 1994.273 Cristofani 1975.274 Marconi 2004, 27.

This is perhaps nowhere truer than with Attic eye cups. Especially in recent years, they have been per-sistently tied to the customs of the Athenian sympo-sion and the elite milieu of sympotic play, and yet the earliest, largest, and highest-quality (to modern eyes) examples come from Etruria, where the symposion as the Athenians knew it did not exist.275 With some exceptions—namely, fragmentary examples from the Agora and a few from Naukratis—surviving Athenian eye cups found in Greece and Greek-settled sites tend to be smaller and later in the series and to come mainly from sanctuaries. Most examples associated with ban-queting come instead from non-Greek sites, not only in Etruria but also elsewhere in the west and east. The contextual data caution us to avoid a narrow inter-pretation tied exclusively to the Athenian symposion and to consider meanings that take into account the distribution of eye cups, among other factors. Clearly, workshops and traders were aware of the demand for these kylikes in different areas of the Mediterranean and directed production and shipment accordingly.

Documented tomb assemblages with eye cups from Etruria—the region where most were sent—provide an opportunity to consider local use and meanings: emblematic of banqueting in life and death, protec-tive entities, likely with ritual uses. Like other Greek

275 Cf. Small 1994b, 46.

fig. 18. Attic black-bodied volute krater, from Foiano della Chiana. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902, inv. no. 48.29 (courtesy Walters Art Museum).



vases and indeed other foreign imports, Athenian eye cups were integrated into existing mortuary customs and traditions. It is not difficult to imagine two lives of the eye cups for their Etruscan owners. When the deceased was alive, perhaps the cups joined other ce-ramic and metal vessels—both local and imported—in display assemblages in the home, what have been termed “kylikeia” in scholarly parlance. Assuming that tomb paintings reflect some manner of actual prac-tice, they suggest the inclusion of Greek kylikes in such contexts: for example, in the Tomba della Nave at Tarquinia, where a pair hang suspended above a krater, amphora, and other storage vessels. In the Tomba dei Vasi Dipinti, a similar painted assemblage appears, complete with a metal volute krater, a pair of black-figure amphoras (one with dancing satyrs ap-pears Etruscan in manufacture), and a pair of kylikes that are turned upside down on the lower shelf with their exterior decoration visible. The left-hand kylix resembles a black-figure eye cup, and if the relative scale of the objects is to be trusted, it is quite large, along the lines of cups discussed here.276 It is possible that in a home as well as in a tomb, the eyes enabled a cup to serve as an apotropaion to protect its owner.

That the Athenians themselves associated the Etrus-cans with eye cups is suggested by the only surviving vase to show an eye cup in action: a black-figure stam-nos attributed to the Michigan Painter of the Perizoma Group, of unknown provenance but almost certainly from Etruria (figs. 19, 20).277 Shapiro discussed the iconography of the Perizoma Group stamnoi in detail, proposing not only that these vases were targeted to-ward the Etruscans but also that the scenes on them represent Etruscans as envisioned by Athenian paint-ers.278 The body of this stamnos shows a man and wom-

276 Paleothodoros (2011, 47) likewise believes this to be an Attic eye cup. For drawings of the painted kylikeia in the Tom-ba della Nave and Tomba dei Vasi Dipinti, see Spivey 1991, 136–37, figs. 54, 55.

277 Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. no. 50.8.2/A5933.50.8 (ABV, 343, no. 1; BAPD, no. 301903; Beazley Addenda 2 93; Paralipomena 156). The Greek inscription “SO” appears under the foot in black glaze; some scholars as-sociate this mark with the trader Sostratos of Aegina, “whose career as a merchant in Italy can be tentatively reconstructed from a combination of evidence including trademarks on vas-es, a reference in Herodotos (4.152.3), and a marble anchor he dedicated at Gravisca, the port of Tarquinia” (Shapiro 2000, 337). For Sostratos, see also Johnston 1972; 1979, 80–3 (trademark Type 21A), 190. Significantly, the inscription was applied before firing, which suggests this vase was an advance order by the trader to the workshop.

278 Shapiro 2000 (with a brief discussion of this vase, without mentioning the eye cup, on pp. 330–31). Shapiro emphasiz-es the theme of men reclining with women on the Perizoma Group stamnoi.

an reclining together on a kline the way couples do at banquet in Etruscan art, surrounded by decorously dressed male and female revelers dancing and playing music (see fig. 19). The shoulder scene continues the theme: male and female revelers dance around a col-umn krater placed on the ground, some with musical instruments, some with kylikes. The kylix held by one of the men to the left in the top register is large and is clearly an eye cup, its “face” turned outward toward

fig. 19. Attic stamnos attributed to the Perizoma Group. Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, William Randolph Hearst Collection, inv. no. 50.8.2 (courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

fig. 20. Attic stamnos attributed to the Perizoma Group, de-tail of top register. Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, William Randolph Hearst Collection, inv. no. 50.8.2 (courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art).



the vase’s viewer (see fig. 20). If Shapiro’s thesis is cor-rect, then this is how the Michigan Painter imagined eye cups produced by his Kerameikos contemporaries: in Etruscan hands, part of an Etruscan feast. This par-ticular stamnos may have come from Vulci, where two others by this painter were found in the 19th century; its earliest known publication is an 1859 auction cata-logue, predating formal explorations at Orvieto and Tarquinia, where stamnoi from the Perizoma Group were also discovered.279

The case of the Athenian eye cups further confirms the significance of the neues Denkmodell proposed by Reusser regarding the consumption of Attic vases in Etruria and affirmed in other scholarship.280 Eye cups have their largest concentration at coastal sites, such as Vulci and Cerveteri; however, their presence cannot be taken as a sign of hellenization, for they are also found at inland sites and small communities where contact with Greeks was virtually nonexistent. The eye cup transformed into the lid of an ash urn at Foiano della Chiana (see fig. 4) provides an example of the latter while demonstrating the versatility of At-tic vases in Etruria: the cup’s use evokes local customs of the Chiusine region more than Greek practice.281 One is thus reminded not to consider “the Etruscans” a monolithic cultural entity.282 Even at Vulci, where eye cups were adapted for local burial practice in the tombe a cassone, Attic examples coexisted with eye cups pro-duced by South Italian Greeks (the Chalcidian pottery type), and the eye motif could also be found on locally produced Etruscan black-figure vases, although not kylikes. Athenian eye cups and other Greek vases were chosen as but one part of Etruscan burial assemblages, best studied in tandem with local objects and as part of the local material culture, rather than in isolation. They were not merely decorative and exotic objets d’art, and they may or may not have been chosen for their “Greekness.” Depending on the customer, the fact the vases were Athenian or Greek may have been important not at all.283 Their value may have derived

279 Sotheby and Wilkinson 1859, 13, cat. no. 182.280 Reusser 2002. One could argue, however, that Reusser’s

model is incomplete in neglecting the Athenian producers, who are largely absent from his 2002 study. Cf. the critique in Paleothodoros 2004b.

281 Cf. Chirpanlieva (2012), who notes a preference for spe-cific shapes of imported Attic pottery among Phoenicians at Kition and attributes it to local, longstanding customs. Walsh and Antonaccio (2014, 57) similarly consider “ancestral pref-erences or values” a significant factor in the choices by Sikels at Morgantina of Attic black-glazed pottery.

282 Cf., e.g., Spivey 1991, 147; Paleothodoros 2009, 58.283 Cf. Walsh and Antonaccio (2014, 60), who note that “the

foreignness of an import carries with it the implication that

primarily from their imagery, shape, and/or overall quality more than the place of their production.

Not only could Athenian vases—and the images on the vases—be considered meaningful and symbolic when brought into Etruscan tombs, they could be thought to be powerful. The iconography of Attic eye cups seems to have been as important for their pur-chase and use as shape, which brings us full circle back to the earliest interpretations of eye cups from the 19th century: that the eyes were viewed as apotropaic. It may not be coincidental that Athenian eye cups have been found at sites where apotropaic funerary sculptures in stone had an existing popularity and tradition: Vulci, Orvieto, Falerii, Chiusi, Bologna. The apotropaic ef-fect of the cups would have been amplified on those examples, mainly Chalcidizing cups, which featured a nose-like form between the eyes and thus could have looked feline to an Etruscan viewer or reminiscent of some other meaningful creature. Cups that include Silen ears or wings beyond the eyes or that have more feminine-shaped eyes would recall the nymphs/ maenads, Gorgons, satyrs, and winged creatures that served as antefixes on Etruscan temples and acted as both liminal and protective beings.284

Let us reconsider the eye cup by Exekias that began this article (see fig. 1). According to Bonaparte’s 1829 catalogue, it was found in the Cannelocchio località of Vulci, part of the eastern necropoleis, together with a black-figure amphora attributable to the Painter of

these goods were probably, on some level at least, prestigious novelties” but conclude that “the Athenian ‘brand’ did carry some value, but if it were the most significant factor, a broader and less discriminate distribution of shapes, especially those displaying images, would have been discovered at Morgantina . . . consumer interests must be investigated from a local per-spective first” (63). Contra those who suggest shape was more important or even the exclusive appeal of Athenian vases to Etruscans (e.g., Blinkenberg 1999). Reusser (2002) argues that shape played the determining role but that imagery was also important.

284 On Silen ears and feminine-shaped eyes, see supra nn. 12, 16, 17. Examples with wings are few, but note, e.g., the Chalcidizing cup (Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 864) from Tomb LXXXVII (Tomb LX in CVA) in the Celle necropolis of Falerii (ABV, 204, no. 6; BAPD, no. 302622; Ambrosini 2005, 309 n. 53). Since Etrus-can art/mythology includes many winged figures, a number of different beings may have been evoked. The ceiling of the rear chamber of the Tomba della Scimmia in Chiusi includes four painted figures of winged females who may be Sirens or underworld demons, such as Vanth (Brendel 1995, 276, fig. 192). For the liminal and protective nature of the creatures on temple antefixes, see, e.g., Izzet (2001, 193–94), who also stresses their frontality and direct engagement with the viewer as part of their function.



Berlin 1686.285 If MacKay’s chronology is accepted, the kylix was produced after other Exekian vases were sent to Etruria—namely, a series of black-figure amphoras and including to Vulci itself; from this we can speculate that Exekias knew something of the market and that both he and a trader anticipated this special and surely time-consuming piece would find a purchaser.286 The Type A cup shape, depiction of eyes on the exterior, and use of coral red glaze on the interior are all fea-tures perhaps created by Exekias or adopted by him first for Athenian vases; even if they were not, they were new enough to excite a Vulcian customer interested in imported vessels. The large size is perhaps another feature that Exekias knew would be appreciated by a buyer abroad.

The cup shows signs of having been mended in an-tiquity, so it may have been displayed in its Etruscan owner’s home during his lifetime. If suspended on a hook or nail like the cups in the painted kylikeion of the Tomba della Nave at Tarquinia, a combat scene above the handle would have been well visible.287 If the vessel was resting on a shelf and turned in the other direction, the Dionysian scene on the interior would likewise be well visible. Too large for easy drinking, like many of the eye cups discussed here, it may have been used on special occasions or for household rituals.288 Once the cup was taken from house to tomb and placed inside, perhaps being used first for offerings at the fu-nerary feast, the cup attained a new dimension with its themes paralleled in other Vulcian tomb assemblages: banqueting, status, and protection. For the Etruscan viewer, Dionysos became Fufluns and his ship evocative

285 Bonaparte (1829, 180) also reports “quelques orne-ments d’or représentant des figures.” For the amphora (Mu-nich, Antikensammlungen, inv. no. 1401), see ABV, 297, no. 11; BAPD, no. 320390; Beazley Addenda 2 78; Bonaparte 1829, 163–72, cat. no. 1887. Bonaparte’s catalogue otherwise gives no information about objects found together; this single in-stance is a remarkable exception.

286 MacKay (2010, 1–2) acknowledges that most of Exekias’ surviving vases have findspots outside of Greece, especially in Etruscan tombs, but presents Athenian interpretations.

287 For the ancient repair, see CVA Munich 13 (Germany 77), 15. As Fellmann notes in the CVA volume, modern resto-rations obscure much of the repair, which occurred where the foot met the body and was fixed with metal clamps. It is not clear whether the original repair was done in bronze (which would suggest it was mended in Etruria [see supra n. 74]) or in lead (which would suggest its repair in Athens before ship-ment). Other Athenian cups found in Etruria exhibit repairs to the stem; for examples, see Elston 1990.

288 Lynch (2011, 93–5) discusses two red-figure cups with intentional (coral) red glaze in Well J2:4 of the Agora, one attributed to Euphronios and both with extensive ancient re-pairs. She suggests that they may have been used by the home-owners for special occasions, especially given that there are only two.

of the sea voyage to the afterworld; Vulcian and other Etruscan funerary imagery in the sixth century often conceptualized the journey thus, with some stone sculp-tures from Vulci showing riders on sea creatures.289 If the story was interpreted as the god’s encounter with the Tyrrhenian pirates, then the theme of transfor-mation became particularly appropriate.290 The face-like exterior of the cup with its large eyes, meanwhile, served its own purpose to protect the deceased and his tomb from harm. The kylix’s imagery dovetailed nicely with the amphora accompanying it, the latter featuring Dionysos, Ariadne, and male figures on one side, and what may be a warrior’s departure on the other. Once again we can presume deliberate choices of both vases by the deceased’s family.

Eye cups and other Attic vases were not passive objects, any more than the Etruscans or other non-Athenians who received them were passive recipi-ents.291 Like the Greek word “kylix,” which became the Etruscan word “culichna,” and like the customs of the symposion itself, eye cups were brought into Etruria and then fully integrated, even transformed to suit lo-cal needs and values. They functioned actively within tomb assemblages and in other contexts. While repre-senting certain constants such as banqueting, status, and protection, they were manipulated, sometimes lit-erally so, into the funerary practices of different com-munities. No longer Athenian objects or even Greek, they had become fully Etruscan, until their rediscovery made them Athenian once again.

college of arts and sciencesdavis hall 100university of south florida st. petersburg140 seventh avenue southst. petersburg, florida [email protected]

289 See, e.g., Torelli 2002, 56–8; Jannot 2005, 59–61; Kraus-kopf 2006, 67–9. The Greek meaning of the scene has been debated, with interpretations ranging from the story of Dio-nysos and the pirates (as told in the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos) to, more recently, the arrival of the god from Naxos (MacKay 2010). It is possible that the Etruscan viewer at Vulci would have seen a connection to the story of the pirates, given that the myth was known there—e.g., on a black-figure vase by the Micali Painter recently repatriated from the Toledo Museum of Art to Italy (Spivey and Rasmussen 1986).

290 Cf. Paleothodoros 2012a, 472.291 This category includes not only other non-Greek cus-

tomers in the west and east but Greeks outside of Athens for whom Attic vases were no less imports, whether far away in Magna Graecia and Sicily or closer to home in Boeotia and other areas of mainland Greece. Cf. Paleothodoros (2007a, 168) on the scholarly neglect of mainland Greece as a market for exported Athenian pottery.



Works Cited

Albersmeier, S., ed. 2009. Heroes: Mortals and Myths in An-cient Greece. Baltimore, Md.: Walters Art Museum.

Ambrosini, L. 2005. “Circolazione della ceramica attica nell’agro falisco e volsiniese: Un confronto.” AnnFaina 12: 301–36.

———. 2013. “Candelabra, Thymiateria, and Kottaboi at Ban-quets: Greece and Etruria in Comparison.” EtrStud 16: 1–38.

Avramidou, A. 2006. “Attic Vases in Etruria: Another View on the Divine Banquet Cup by the Codrus Painter.” AJA 110(4):565–79.

Baldoni, V. 2012. “Forme, immagini e rituali: Osservazioni sulla ceramica attica dalle necropolis di Marzabotto.” In The Contexts of Painted Pottery in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Seventh–Fourth Centuries BCE), edited by D. Paleo-thodoros, 81–91. BAR-IS 2364. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Barbagli, D., and M. Iozzo. 2007. Etruschi: Chiusi, Siena, Palermo. La collezione Bonci Casuccini. Siena, Italy: Pro-tagon Editori.

Beazley, J.D. 1986. The Development of Attic Black-Figure. Re-vised and edited by D. von Bothmer and M.B. Moore. Sather Classical Lectures 24. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bell, E.E. 1977. “Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon.” CSCA 10:1–15.

Bertani, M.G. 1995. “Il ‘banchetto dei morti’ in Etruria Padana.” In Agricoltura e commerci nell’Italia antica, edited by L. Quilici and S. Quilici Gigli, 41–64. Atlante tematico di topografia antica 1. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Bizzarri, C. 2012. “Gli inizi del santuario di Campo della Fiera: La ceramica greca.” AnnFaina 19:77–114.

Blinkenberg, H.H. 1999. “La clientèle étrusque des vas-es attiques a-t-elle acheté des vases ou des images?” In Céramique et peinture grecques: Modes d’emploi. Actes du col-loque international, École du Louvre, 26-27-28 avril 1995, edited by M.-C. Villanueva-Puig, F. Lissarrague, P. Rouil-lard, and A. Rouweret, 439–43. Paris: Documentation Française.

Bloesch, H. 1940. Formen attischer Schalen von Exekias bis zum Ende des Strengen Stils. Bern: Benteli.

Boardman, J. 1974. Athenian Black Figure Vases: A Handbook. London and New York: Thames & Hudson.

———. 1976. “A Curious Eye Cup.” AA:281–90. ———. 1988. “Trade in Greek Decorated Pottery.” OJA 7:

27–33.———. 1996. Greek Art. 4th ed. London and New York:

Thames & Hudson.———. 1999. The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and

Trade. 4th ed. London and New York: Thames & Hudson.Boehlau, J. 1900. “Die ionischen Augenschalen.” AM 25:

40–99.Boitani, F. 1983. “Veio: La tomba ‘principesca’ della ne-

cropoli di Monte Michele.” StEtr 51:535–56.Bonaparte, L. 1829. Museum étrusque de Lucien Bonaparte,

Prince de Canino, Fouilles de 1828 à 1829: Vases peints avec inscriptions. Viterbo, Italy: Camille Tosoni.

Bonaudo, R. 2010. “Eroi in viaggio: Odisseo dalla Grecia in Etruria.” Bollettino di Archeologia Online 1:15–28. www.bollet-tinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/ generale/3_%20Bonaudo_paper.pdf.

Bonfante, L. 1993. “Fufluns Pacha: The Etruscan Dionysus.” In Masks of Dionysus, edited by T.H. Carpenter, 221–35. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Bonghi Jovino, M., ed. 2001. Tarquinia: Scavi sistemati-ci nell’abitato. Campagne 1982–1988. Vol. 2, I materiali. Tarchna 3. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Brendel, O.J. 1995. Etruscan Art. 2nd ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Briquel, D. 1995. “Notes sur les vases portant l’inscription ‘SUTHINA’ et réputés provenir de Nola.” RÉA 97:217–23.

Briquel, D., and F. Gaultier. 1989–1990. “Rivista di epigra-fia etrusca.” StEtr 56:361–62.

Brizio, E. 1879. “Vasi dipinti in Bologna.” BdI:214–24.———. 1889. “Bologna: Tombe della necropoli felsinea

scoperte nel Giardino Margherita.” NSc :205–10.Brizzolara, A.M., and V. Baldoni. 2010a. “La ceramica at-

tica figurata e a vernice nera.” In Marzabotto: La Casa 1 della Regio IV, Insula 2. Vol. 2, I materiali, edited by E. Govi and G. Sassatelli, 9–44. Studi e scavi 26. Bologna: Ante Quem.

———. 2010b. “Eracle nella ceramica attica in Etruria padana: La ricezione delle immagini.” Bollettino di Arch- eologia Online 1:2–14. www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/2_Brizzolara_ Baldoni_paper.pdf.

Brunori, S. 2006. “Vulci e le idrie attiche a figure nere.” Ostraka 5:249–78.

Bruschetti, P. 2012. La necropoli di Crocifisso del Tufo a Or-vieto: Contesti tombali. Monumenti etruschi 10. Pisa and Rome: Fabrizio Serra Editore.

Buitron, D., and B. Cohen. 1992. The Odyssey and Ancient Art: An Epic in Word and Image. Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Edith C. Blum Art Institute, Bard College.

Bundrick, S.D. 2014. “Under the Tuscan Soil: Reuniting Attic Vases with an Etruscan Tomb.” In Athenian Potters and Painters. Vol. 3, edited by J.H. Oakley, 11–21. Ox-ford: Oxbow.

Buranelli, F. 1994. Ugo Ferraguti, L’ultimo archeologo-mecenate: Cinque anni di scavi a Vulci (1928–1932) attraverso il fon-do fotografico Ugo Ferraguti. Archaeologica 109. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

———. 1995. “Gli scavi a Vulci (1828–1854) di Luciano e Alexandrine Bonaparte Principi di Canino.” In Luciano Bonaparte: Le sue collezioni d’arte, le sue residenze a Roma, nel Lazio, in Italia, 1804–1840, edited by M. Natoli, 81–218. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato.

———, ed. 1997. La raccolta Giacinto Guglielmi. Vol. 1, La ceramica. Monumenti musei e gallerie pontificie, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 4. Rome: Quasar.

Burow, J., J. Heiden, and E. Kunze-Götte. 2000. Archaische Keramik aus Olympia. OlForsch 28. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Camporeale, G. 2005. “Considerazioni sul gorgoneion ar-caico in Etruria.” In Aeimnestos: Miscellanea di Studi per Mario Cristofani, edited by B. Adembri, 289–96. Prospet-tiva Suppl. 2. Florence: Centro Di.

———. 2009. “The Deified Deceased in Etruscan Culture.” In New Perspectives on Etruria and Early Rome: In Honor of Richard Daniel De Puma, edited by S. Bell and H. Nagy, 220–50. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Carlson, D.N. 2009. “Seeing the Sea: Ships’ Eyes in Classi-cal Greece.” Hesperia 78:347–65.

Carpenter, T.H. 1986. Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art: Its Development in Black-Figure Vase Painting. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press.

Carpino, A.A. 2008. “Reflections from the Tomb: Mirrors as Grave Goods in Late Classical and Hellenistic Tar-quinia.” EtrStud 11:1–33.


http://www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/3_%20Bonaudo_paper.pdf



http://www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/2_Brizzolara_Baldoni_paper.pdf




Chiaramonte Treré, C. 1987. “Altri dati dagli scavi alla Ci-vita sugli aspetti cultuali e rituali.” In Tarquinia: Ricerche, scavi e prospettive. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi La Lombardia per gli Etruschi, Milano, 24–25 giugno 1986, edited by M. Bonghi Jovino and C. Chiaramonte Treré, 79–89. Milan: Edizioni ET.

Chirpanlieva, I. 2012. “The Attic Pottery from Kition: A Contextual Approach.” In Cyprus, an Island Culture: So-ciety and Social Relations from the Bronze Age to the Venetian Period, edited by A. Georgiou, 241–50. Oxford: Oxbow.

Ciacci, A. 2005. “Il consumo del vino in Etruria: Aspetti ideologici, rituali, ed epigrafici.” In Vinum: Un progetto per il riconoscimento della vite silvestre nel paesaggio archeologico della Toscana e del Lazio settentrionale, edited by A. Ciacci and A. Zifferero, 121–33. Siena: Ci. Vin.

Ciuccarelli, M.R. 2006. “Acheloo ctonio dalla Magna Gre-cia all’Etruria?” Mediterranea 3:121–40.

Clark, A.J. 2009. “Some Practical Aspects of Attic Black-Figured Olpai and Oinochoai.” In Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th–4th Centuries B.C.): Proceedings of the Symposium Held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, 27–29 April 2006, edited by A. Tsingarida, 89–109. Études d’archéologie classique 3. Brussels: CreA-Patrimoine.

Coccagna, H.A. 2009. “Embodying Sympotic Experience: Anatomical Manipulations of Athenian Vases.” Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University.

Cohen, B. 1978. Attic Bilingual Vases and Their Painters. New York: Garland.

———, ed. 2006. The Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athe-nian Vases. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Colonna, G. 1987. “I culti del santuario della Cannicella.” AnnFaina 3:11–26.

———. 1991. “Reflessioni sul dionisismo in Etruria.” In Dionysos: Mito e mistero. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Comacchio, 3–5 novembre 1989, edited by F. Berti, 117–35. Ferrara: Liberty House.

———. 1996. “Il dokanon, il culto dei Dioscuri e gli aspetti ellenizzanti della religione dei morti nell’Etruria tardo-arcaica.” In Scritti di antichità in memoria di Sandro Stuc-chi. Vol. 2, 165–84. Studi miscellanei 29. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Connor, P.J. 1996. “A Leaper, a Rivet, and Graffiti on a Bilingual Eye Cup of the Early Red Figure Period.” AA 111:363–70.

Courbin, P. 1953. “Les origines du canthare attique archa-ïque.” BCH 77:322–45.

Cristofani, M. 1975. Statue-cinerario chiusine di età classica. Archaeologica 1. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Cristofani, M., and M. Martelli. 1978. “Fufluns Paxies: Sugli aspetti del culto di Bacco in Etruria.” StEtr 46:119–33.

Damgaard Andersen, H. 1993. “The Etruscan Ancestor Cult, Its Origins and Development and the Importance of Anthropomorphization.” AnalRom 21:7–66.

de Grummond, N.T. 1991. “Etruscan Twins and Mirror Images: The Dioskouroi at the Door.” YaleBull:10–31.

———. 2000. “Mirrors and Manteia: Themes of Prophecy on Etruscan and Praenestine Mirrors.” In Aspetti e problemi della produzione degli specchi etruschi figurati: Atti dell’incontro internazionale di studio, Roma, 2–4 maggio 1997, edited by M.D. Gentili, 27–67. Rome: Aracne.

———. 2006. Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend. Phil-adelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum.

———. 2009. “On Mutilated Mirrors.” In Votives, Places, and Rituals in Etruscan Religion: Studies in Honor of Jean MacIn-tosh Turfa, edited by M. Gleba and H. Becker, 171–82.

Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 166. Leiden: Brill.de la Genière, J. 1987. “Des usages du cratère.” RÉA 89:

271–82.———. 1988. “Images attiques et religiosité étrusque.”

In Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Ancient Greek and Related Pottery: Copenhagen, August 31–September 4, 1987, edited by J. Christiansen and T. Melander, 161–69. Co-penhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

———. 2003. “Barbares et Grecs, des vases attiques pour les morts.” In Il greco, il barbaro, e la ceramica attica: Im-maginario del diverso, processi di scambio e autorappresentazi-one degli indigeni. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, 14–19 maggio 2001, Catania, Caltanissetta, Gela, Camarina, Vittoria, Siracusa. Vol. 1, edited by F. Giudice and R. Pan-vini, 29–36. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

———. 2009. “Les amateurs des scènes érotiques de l’archaisme récent.” In Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th–4th Centuries B.C.): Proceedings of the Symposium Held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, 27–29 April 2006, edited by A. Tsingarida, 337–46. Études d’archéologie classique 3. Brussels: CreA-Patrimoine.

De Puma, R.D. 2008. “A Third-Century B.C.E. Etruscan Tomb Group from Bolsena in the Metropolitan Muse-um of Art.” AJA 112(3):429–40.

Dennis, G. 1848. The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. Lon-don: J. Murray.

Dietler, M. 2010. Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Drukker, A. 1986. “The Ivy Painter in Friesland.” In Enthou-siasmos: Essays on Greek and Related Pottery Presented to J.M. Hemelrijk, edited by H.A.G. Brijder, 39–48. Allard Pierson Series 6. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum.

Eisman, M.M. 1971. “Attic Kyathos Painters.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania.

———. 1972. “Are Eyes Apotropaic?” Abstract. AJA 76(2): 210.

———. 1974. “Nikosthenic Amphorai: The J. Paul Getty Museum Amphora.” GettyMusJ 1:43–54.

———. 1975. “Attic Kyathos Production.” Archaeology 28: 76–83.

Elston, M. 1990. “Ancient Repairs of Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum.” GettyMusJ 18:53–68.

Ferraguti, U. 1937. “I bronzi di Vulci.” StEtr 11:107–20.Ferrari, G. 1986. “Eye-Cup.” RA:5–20.Fiorini, L., and S. Fortunelli. 2009. “Nuove acquisizioni dal

santuario settentrionale di Gravisca.” In Ceramica attica da santuari della Grecia, della Ionia, e dell’Italia: Atti Convegno internazionale, Perugia, 14–17 marzo 2007, edited by S. For-tunelli and C. Masseria, 303–28. Venosa: Osanna Edizioni.

Fortunelli, S., ed. 2005. Il Museo della città etrusca e romana di Cortona: Catalogo delle collezioni. Florence: Polistampa.

Fowler, R.L. 2000. “Greek Magic, Greek Religion.” In Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, edited by R. Buxton, 317–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Foxhall, L. 1998. “Cargoes of the Heart’s Desire: The Char-acter of Trade in the Archaic Mediterranean World.” In Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence, edited by N. Fisher and H. van Wees, 295–310. London and Swansea: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales.

Frontisi-Ducroux, F. 1989. “In the Mirror of the Mask.” In A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, by C. Bérard, C. Bron, J.-L. Durand, F. Frontisi-Ducroux, F. Lissarrague, and A. Schnapp, 150–65. Translated by D. Lyons. Princeton: Princeton University Press.



———. 1995. Du masque au visage: Aspects de l’identité en Grèce ancienne. Paris: Flammarion.

Gaunt, J. 2002. “The Attic Volute-Krater.” Ph.D. diss., New York University.

Gempeler, R.D. 1974. Die etruskischen Kanopen: Herstellung, Typologie, Entwicklungsgeschichte. Einsiedeln: Benziger.

Ghirardini, G. 1882. “Corneto–Tarquinia.” NSc:136–214.Giles-Watson, M. 2007. “Odysseus and the Ram in Art and

(Con)text: Arthur M. Sackler Museum 1994.8 and the Hero’s Escape from Polyphemus.” HSCP 103:555–77.

Gill, D.W. 1991. “Pots and Trade: Spacefillers or Objets d’Art?” JHS 111:29–47.

Giulierini, P. 1999–2001. “Foiano della Chiana in età etrus-ca e romana: Storia di una necropoli e di un territorio.” Annuario dell’Accademia Etrusca di Cortona 29:51–88.

Gosden, C., and Y. Marshall. 1999. “The Cultural Biogra-phy of Objects.” WorldArch 31:169–78.

Gozzadini, G. 1879. “Bologna.” NSc:62–3.———. 1881. “Bologna.” NSc:18–20.Graef, B., and E. Langlotz, eds. 1909–1933. Die antiken Vasen

von der Akropolis zu Athen. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Gsell, S. 1891. Fouilles dans la nécropole de Vulci: Exécutées et

publiées aux frais de S.E. le prince Torlonia. Paris: E. Thorin.Hales, S., and T. Hodos, eds. 2010. Material Culture and So-

cial Identities in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hall, J.M. 2009. “Ethnicity and Cultural Exchange.” In A Companion to Archaic Greece, edited by K.A. Raaflaub and H. van Wees, 604–17. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hannestad, L. 1986. “Two Eye Cups from the Workshop of Lydos.” In Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmalerei: Konrad Schauenberg zum 65. Geburtstag am 16. April 1986, edited by E. Böhr and W. Martini, 41–6. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.

———. 1988. “The Athenian Potter and the Home Mar-ket.” In Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Ancient Greek and Related Pottery: Copenhagen, August 31–September 4, 1987, edited by J. Christiansen and T. Melander, 222–30. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

———. 1989. “Athenian Pottery in Etruria, ca. 550–470 B.C.” ActaArch 59:113–30.

Hayashi, T. 1992. Bedeutung und Wandel des Triptolemosbil-des vom 6–4 Jh. v. Chr.: Religionshistorische und typologische Untersuchungen. Beiträge zur Archäologie 20. Würzburg: K. Triltsch.

Hedreen, G. 1992. Silens in Attic Black-Figure Vase Painting: Myth and Performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michi-gan Press.

———. 2007. “Involved Spectatorship in Archaic Greek Art.” Art History 30:217–46.

Helbig, W. 1875. “Scavi di Corneto.” BdI:170–76.———. 1879. “Scavi e viaggi in Etruria-Fojano.” BdI:242–49.———. 1881a. “Viaggio nell’Etruria: Vulci.” BdI:241–48. ———. 1881b. “Corneto-Tarquinia.” NSc:343–71.———. 1881c. “Viaggio nell’Etruria: Orvieto.” BdI:261–82.———. 1886. “Scavi di Capodimonte.” RM 1:18–36.Hildburgh, W.L. 1946. “Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paint-

ing.” Folklore 57:154–78.———. 1947. “Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Painting (Con-

tinued).” Folklore 58:208–25.Holloway, R.R. 1986. “The Bulls in the ‘Tomb of the Bulls’

at Tarquinia.” AJA 90(4):447–52.Huber, K. 1999. Le ceramiche attiche a figure rosse. Gravisca:

Scavi nel santuario greco 6. Bari: Edipuglia.Iacobazzi, B. 2004. Le ceramiche attiche a figure nere. Gravisca:

Scavi nel santuario greco 5. Bari: Edipuglia.

Iozzo, M. 1994. Ceramica ‘calcidese’: Nuovi documenti e proble-mi riproposti. Atti e memorie della società Magna Grecia, ser. 2, vol. 3. Rome: Società Magna Grecia.

———. 2006. “Osservazioni sulle più antiche importazio-ni di ceramica greca a Chiusi e nel suo territorio (circa 650/620–550/520 a.C.).” In Les clients de la céramique grecque: Actes du colloque de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, 30–31 janvier 2004, edited by J. de la Genière, 107–32. Cahiers du CVA 1. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

Isler-Kerényi, C. 2003. “Images grecques au banquet funéraire étrusque.” In Symposium: Banquet et représenta-tions en Grèce et à Rome. Colloque international Université de Toulouse-le-Mirail, [7–9] mars 2002, edited by C. Orfanos and J.-C. Carrière, 37–47. Pallas 61. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail.

———. 2007. Dionysos in Archaic Greece: An Understanding Through Images. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 160. Leiden: Brill.

Izzet, V. 2001. “Form and Meaning in Etruscan Ritual Space.” CAJ 11:185–200.

———. 2007a. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 2007b. “Greeks Make It, Etruscans Fecit: The Stig-ma of Plagiarism in the Reception of Etruscan Art.” EtrStud 10:223–37.

Jackson, D.A. 1976. East Greek Influence on Attic Vases. So-ciety for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Suppl. 13. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.

Jannot, J.-R. 1991. “Charun et Charôn: À propos d’un dé-mon funéraire étrusque.” CRAI:443–64.

———. 1993. “Charun, Tuchulcha et les autres.” RM 100:59–81.

———. 2005. Religion in Ancient Etruria. Translated by J.K. Whitehead. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Johnson, F.P. 1943. “Black-Figure Pottery at Chicago.” AJA 47(4):385–402.

Johnston, A.W. 1972. “The Rehabilitation of Sostratos.” PP 147:416–23.

———. 1979. Trademarks on Greek Vases. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.

———. 1985. “Etruscans in the Greek Vase Trade?” In Il commercio etrusco arcaico: Atti dell’incontro di studio, 5–7 dicembre, 1983, edited by M. Cristofani, 249–55. QArchEtr 9. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.

Jordan, J.A. 1988. “Attic Black-Figured Eye Cups.” Ph.D. diss., New York University.

Joy, J. 2009. “Reinvigorating Object Biography: Reproduc-ing the Drama of Object Lives.” WorldArch 41:540–56.

Jully, J.-J. 1978. “Céramique laconienne et céramique at-tique de l’habitat de hauteur languedocien d’Ensérune (Hérault): Fouilles 1929–1967.” Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 4:347–73.

Kindt, J. 2012. Rethinking Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

Kopytoff, I. 1986. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Com-moditization as Process.” In The Social Life of Things: Com-modities in Cultural Perspective, edited by A. Appadurai, 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Körte, G. 1877. “Sulla necropoli di Orvieto.” BdI 49:95–184.Krauskopf, I. 2006. “The Grave and Beyond in Etruscan

Religion.” In The Religion of the Etruscans, edited by N.T. de Grummond and E. Simon, 66–89. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Krotscheck, U. 2008. “Scale, Structure, and Organization of



Archaic Maritime Trade in the Western Mediterranean: The ‘Pointe Lequin 1A.’” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University.

Kunisch, N. 1990. “Die Augen der Augenschalen.” AntK 33:20–7.

Künze-Gotte, E., K. Tancke, and K. Vierneisel. 1999. Die Nekropole von der Mitte des 6. bis zum ende des 5. Jahrhun-derts. Kerameikos 7. Munich: Hirmer.

Langdon, S. 2001. “Beyond the Grave: Biographies from Early Greece.” AJA 105(4):579–606.

Langridge-Noti, E.M. 2013. “Consuming Iconographies.” In Pottery Markets in the Ancient Greek World (8th–1st Centuries B.C.): Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at the Université libre de Bruxelles, 19–21 June 2008, edited by A. Tsingarida and D. Viviers, 61–72. Études d’archéologie 5. Brussels: CReA-Patrimoine.

———. 2014. “‘To Market, To Market’: Pottery, the Individ-ual, and Trade in Athens.” In Cities Called Athens: Studies Honoring John McK. Camp II, edited by L.A. Riccardi and K. Daly, 165–96. Lanham, Md.: Bucknell University Press.

Lewis, S. 1997. “Shifting Images: Athenian Women in Etru-ria.” In Gender and Ethnicity in Ancient Italy, edited by T. Cornell and K. Lomas, 141–54. Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy 6. London: Accordia Research Institute.

———. 2003. “Representation and Reception: Athenian Pottery and Its Italian Context.” In Inhabiting Symbols: Symbol and Image in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by J.B. Wilkins and E. Herring, 175–92. Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy 5. London: Accordia Research Institute.

———. 2009. “Athletics on Attic Pottery: Export and Im-agery.” In The World of Greek Vases, edited by V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis, 133–48. AnalRom Suppl. 41. Rome: Quasar.

Lissarrague, F. 1987. “Voyages d’images: Iconographie et aires culturelles.” RÉA 89:261–69.

———. 1990. The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual. Translated by A. Szegedy-Maszak. Princ-eton: Princeton University Press.

Long, L., J. Miro, and G. Volpe. 1992. “Les épaves archa-ïques de la pointe Lequin (Porquerelles, Hyères, Var): Des données nouvelles sur le commerce de Marseille à la fin du VIe s. et dans la première moitié du Ve s. av. J.-C.” In Marseille grecque et la Gaule: Actes du Colloque international d’histoire et d’archéologie et du Ve congrès ar-chéologique de Gaule méridionale (Marseilles, 18–23 novembre 1990), edited by M. Bats, G. Bertucchi, G. Congès, and H. Tréziny, 199–234. Études massaliètes 3. Lattes and Aix-en-Provence: ADAM–PUP.

Lynch, K.M. 2009. “Erotic Images on Attic Vases: Markets and Meanings.” In Athenian Potters and Painters. Vol. 2, edited by J.H. Oakley and O. Palagia, 158–65. Oxford: Oxbow.

———. 2011. The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora. Hesperia Suppl. 46. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Lyons, C.L. 2009. “Nikosthenic Pyxides Between Etruria and Greece.” In Athenian Potters and Painters. Vol. 2, edited by J.H. Oakley and O. Palagia, 166–80. Oxford: Oxbow.

Macellari, R. 2002. Il sepolcreto etrusco nel terreno Arnoaldi di Bologna: 550–350 a.c. Bologna: Comune di Bologna.

Mack, R. 2002. “Facing Down Medusa (An Aetiology of the Gaze).” Art History 25:571–604.

MacKay, E.A. 2001. “The Frontal Face and ‘You’: Narra-tive Disjunction in Early Greek Poetry and Painting.” Acta Classica 44:5–34.

———. 2010. Tradition and Originality: A Study of Exekias. BAR-IS 2092. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Maggiani, A. 1997. Vasi attici figurati con dediche a divinità etrusche. RdA Suppl. 18. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

———. 2005. “Il cippo di Larth Cupures Veiente e gli altri semata a testa umana da Orvieto.” AnnFaina 12:29–73.

Malagardis, N. 1997. “‘Attic Vases, Etruscan Stories’: Les échanges et les hommes. Origine, vie brève et mort d’une forme de vase attique archaïque.” In Athenian Pot-ters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, edited by J.H. Oakley, W.D.E. Coulson, and O. Palagia, 33–53. Oxbow Monograph 67. Oxford: Oxbow.

Maras, D.F. 2000. “Le iscrizioni sacre etrusche sul vasel-lame in età tardo-arcaica e recente.” ScAnt 10:121–37.

Marconi, C. 2004. “Images for a Warrior: On a Group of Athenian Vases and Their Public.” In Greek Vases: Imag-es, Contexts, and Controversies. Proceedings of the Conference Sponsored by the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Co-lumbia University, 23–24 March 2002, edited by C. Mar-coni, 27–40. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 25. Leiden: Brill.

Martelli, M. 1979. “Prime considerazioni sulla statistica del-la importazione greche in Etruria nel periodo arcaico.” StEtr 47:37–52.

———. 1989. “La ceramica greca in Etruria: Problemi e prospettive di ricerca.” In Atti del secondo Congresso inter-nazionale etrusco, Firenze, 26 maggio–2 giugno 1985. Vol. 2, 781–811. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Martens, D. 1992. Une esthétique de la transgression: Le vase grec de la fin de l’époque géométrique au début de l’époque clas-sique. Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique.

Massa-Pairault, F.-H. 2012. “L’Attique et ses héros vus de l’Étrurie: Quelques exemples.” In Vasenbilder im Kul-turtransfer: Zirkulation und Rezeption griechischer Keramik im Mittelmeerraum, edited by S. Schmidt and A. Stähli, 113–20. Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum 5. Munich: C.H. Beck.

Massarenti, M. 1897. Catalogue du Musée de peinture, sculp-ture, et archéologie au Palais Accoramboni. Rome: Forzani.

Matheson, S.B. 1994. “The Mission of Triptolemos and the Politics of Athens.” GRBS 35:345–72.

Meyer, J.C. 1980. “Roman History in the Light of the Im-port of Attic Vases to Rome and Etruria in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C.” AnalRom 9:47–68.

Michetti, L.M. 2011. “Gli dei sul tetto: Le basi acroteriali del tempio di Veio-Portonaccio. Struttura e apparato decorativo.” In Deliciae fictiles IV: Architectural Terracottas in Ancient Italy, Images of Gods, Monsters and Heroes. Pro-ceedings of the International Conference Held in Rome (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Royal Netherlands Institute) and Syracuse (Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi), Oc-tober 21–25, 2009, edited by P. Lulof and C. Rescigno, 96–106. Oxford: Oxbow.

Milne, M.J. 1945. “A Prize for Wool-Working.” AJA 49(4): 528–33.

Mitchell, A.G. 2009. Greek Vase-Painting and the Origins of Vi-sual Humour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Moon, W.G. 1983. “The Priam Painter: Some Iconograph-ic and Stylistic Considerations.” In Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, edited by W.G. Moon, 97–118. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Moore, M.B. 1997. Attic Red-Figure and White-Ground Pot-tery. Agora 30. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Moore, M.B., and M.Z. Philippides. 1986. Attic Black-Figured



Pottery. Agora 23. Princeton: American School of Classi-cal Studies at Athens.

Moretti Sgubini, A.M., ed. 2001. Veio, Cerveteri, Vulci: Città d’Etruria a confronto. Roma, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Villa Poniatowski, 1 ottobre–30 dicembre 2001. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Neer, R.T. 2002. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, ca. 530–460 B.C.E. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nilsson, A. 1999. “The Function and Reception of Attic Figured Pottery: Spina. A Case Study.” AnalRom 26:7–23.

Nørskov, V. 2009. “The Affairs of Lucien Bonaparte and the Impact on the Study of Greek Vases.” In The World of Greek Vases, edited by V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis, 63–76. AnalRom Suppl. 41. Rome: Quasar.

Nowak, T.J. 2006. “Archaeological Evidence for Ship Eyes: An Analysis of Their Form and Function.” M.A. thesis, Texas A&M University.

Oakley, J.H. 1992. “An Athenian Red-Figured Workshop from the Time of the Peloponnesian War.” In Les ateliers de potiers dans le monde grec aux époques géométrique archa-ïque et classique: Actes de la Table Ronde organisée à l’École française d’Athènes (2 et 3 octobre 1987), edited by F. Blondé and J.Y. Perreault, 195–203. BCH Suppl. 23. Paris: De Boccard.

———.1994. “An Attic Black-Figured Eye Cup with Ships Around the Interior.” AA 109:16–23.

Osborne, R. 1996. “Pots, Trade, and the Archaic Greek Economy.” Antiquity 70:31–44.

———. 2001. “Why Did Athenian Pots Appeal to the Etrus-cans?” WorldArch 33:277–95.

———. 2004. “Images of a Warrior: On a Group of Athenian Vases and Their Public.” In Greek Vases: Images, Contexts, and Controversies. Proceedings of the Conference Sponsored by the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University, 23–24 March 2002, edited by C. Marconi, 41–54. Colum-bia Studies in the Classical Tradition 25. Leiden: Brill.

———. 2007a. “What Travelled with Greek Pottery?” Medi-terranean Historical Review 22:85–95.

———. 2007b. “Projecting Identities in the Greek Sympo-sion.” In Material Identities, edited by J. Sofaer, 31–52. Oxford: Blackwell.

Pala, E. 2012. Acropoli di Atene: Un microcosmo della produzione e distribuzione della ceramica attica. Supplementi e mono-grafie della rivista Archeologia Classica 8. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Paleothodoros, D. 2002. “Pourquoi les Étrusques achetaient-ils des vases attiques?” ÉtCl 70:39–60.

———. 2004a. Epictétos. Collection d’études classiques 18. Louvain and Namur: Éditions Peeters/Societé des Études Classiques.

———. 2004b. Review of Vasen für Etrurien: Verbreitung und Funktionen attischer Keramik im Etrurien des 6. und 5. Jahr-hunderts vor Christus, by C. Reusser. AJA 108(1):122–23.

———. 2007a. “Commercial Networks in the Mediterra-nean and the Diffusion of Early Attic Red-Figure Pot-tery (525–490 BCE).” Mediterranean Historical Review 22:165–82.

———. 2007b. “Dionysiac Imagery in Archaic Etruria.” EtrStud 10:187–202.

———. 2009. “Archaeological Context and Iconographic Analysis: Case Studies from Greece and Etruria.” In The World of Greek Vases, edited by V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis, 45–62. AnalRom Suppl.

41. Rome: Quasar.———. 2010. “Etruscan Black Figure in Context.” Bollettino

di Archeologia Online 1:1–11. www.bollettinodiarcheolo-giaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/2_PA-LEOTHODOROS.pdf.

———. 2011. “A Complex Approach to Etruscan Black Fig-ure Vase Painting.” Mediterranea 8:33–82.

———. 2012a. “Dionysus and the Tyrrhenian Pirates.” In Le origini degli Etruschi: Storia, archeologia, antropologia, ed-ited by V. Bellelli, 455–85. StArch 186. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

———. 2012b. “Sex and the Athenian Woman: A Contex-tual Analysis of Erotic Vase Paintings from Attic Graves of the Fifth Century B.C.” In The Contexts of Painted Pottery in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Seventh–Fourth Centuries BCE), edited by D. Paleothodoros, 21–39. BAR-IS 2364. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Palmieri, A. 2011. “Vasi-cinerario etruschi a figure nere dall’Etruria meridionale.” Mediterranea 8:83–150.

Pellegrini, G. 1896. “Canino: Di alcune tombe della ne-cropoli vulcente.” NSc:286–90.

Pieraccini, L.C. 2000. “Families, Feasting, and Funerals: Fu-nerary Ritual at Ancient Caere.” EtrStud 7:35–49.

———. 2011. “The Wonders of Wine in Etruria.” In The Ar-chaeology of Sanctuaries and Ritual in Etruria, edited by N.T. de Grummond and I. Edlund-Berry, 127–37. JRA Suppl. 81. Portsmouth, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology.

Pierre, H. 2008. “Le voyage de Triptolème en Étrurie et en Grande Grèce.” Pallas 77:111–32.

Pizzirani, C. 2010a. “Ceramica attica e ideologia funeraria: Dioniso in Etruria padana.” Bollettino di Archeologia On-line 1:29–35. www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.benicul-turali.it/documenti/generale/4_Pizzirani_paper.pdf.

———. 2010b. “Identità iconografiche tra Dioniso e Ade in Etruria.” In Studi sulla grecità di occidente, edited by L. Braccesi, F. Raviola, and G. Sassatelli, 47–69. Hesperìa (Roma) 26. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Prayon, F. 2010. “The Tomb as Altar.” In Material Aspects of Etruscan Religion: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leiden, May 29 and 30, 2008, edited by L.B. van der Meer, 75–82. BABesch Suppl. 16. Leiden: Peeters.

Rasmussen, T.B. 1985. “Etruscan Shapes in Attic Pottery.” AntK 28:33–9.

Rastrelli, A. 1998. “La distribuzione della ceramica greca nell’agro chiusino.” In In memoria di Enrico Paribeni, ed-ited by G. Capecchi, O. Paoletti, C. Cianferoni, A.M. Es-posito, and A. Romauldi, 339–58. Archaeologica 125. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

Raubitschek, I.K. 1972. “The Eye-Cup.” Abstract. AJA 76(2):217.

Raubitschek, I.K., and A.E. Raubitschek. 1982. “The Mis-sion of Triptolemos.” In Studies in Athenian Architecture, Sculpture, and Topography Presented to Homer A. Thompson, 109–15. Hesperia Suppl. 20. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Reusser, C. 1993. “Una tomba visentina nel Museo Arche-ologico di Chiusi: Considerazioni sulla fase arcaica di Bisenzio.” Prospettiva 70:75–86.

———. 2002. Vasen für Etrurien: Verbreitung und Funktionen attischer Keramik im Etrurien des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts vor Christus. 2 vols. Akanthus crescens 5. Zürich: Akanthus.

———. 2003. “La céramique attique dans les tombes étrusques.” In Le vase grec et ses destins, edited by P. Rouil-lard and A. Verbanck-Piérard, 167–78. Munich: Biering & Brinkmann.


http://www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/2_PALEOTHODOROS.pdf



http://www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/4_Pizzirani_paper.pdf

http://www.bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/documenti/generale/4_Pizzirani_paper.pdf


———. 2004. “La ceramica attica a Vulci.” In Citazioni archeo-logiche: Luciano Bonaparte archeologo. Catalogo della mostra, Orvieto, Museo Claudio Faina, 10 settembre 2004–9 gennaio 2005, edited by G.M. Della Fina, 147–56. Rome: Quasar.

Riccioni, G. 2003. Vasi greci da Vulci: Necropoli dell’Osteria scavi Ferraguti–Mengarelli, 1929–1931. Milan: Comune di Milano.

Riva, C. 2010. “Ingenious Inventions: Welding Ethnicities East and West.” In Material Culture and Social Identities in the Ancient World, edited by S. Hales and T. Hodos, 79–113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rizzo, M.A., ed. 1988. Un artista etrusco e il suo mondo: Il Pit-tore di Micali. Studi di archeologia 5. Rome: De Luca.

———. 1990. Le anfore da trasporto e il commercio etrusco arcai-co. Vol. 1, Complessi tombali dall’Etruria meridionale. Studi di archeologia 3. Rome: De Luca.

Roberts, S.R. 1986. “The Stoa Gutter Well: A Late Archaic Deposit in the Athenian Agora.” Hesperia 55:1–74.

Rotroff, S.I. 2011. “Mended in Antiquity: Repairs to Ce-ramics at the Athenian Agora.” In Pottery in the Archaeo-logical Record: Greece and Beyond. Acts of the International Colloquium Held at the Danish and Canadian Institutes in Athens, June 20–22, 2008, edited by M.L. Lawall and J. Lund, 117–34. Gösta Enbom Monographs 1. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.

Rumpf, A. 1927. Chalkidische Vasen. Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.

Schaeffer, J., N.H. Ramage, and C.H. Greenewalt. 1997. The Corinthian, Attic, and Lakonian Pottery from Sardis. Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 10. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Scheffer, C. 1979. “Sirens and Sphinxes from the Micali Painter’s Workshop.” MedMusB 14:35–49.

———. 1988. “Workshop and Trade Patterns in Athenian Black Figure.” In Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on An-cient Greek and Related Pottery: Copenhagen, August 31– September 4, 1987, edited by J. Christiansen and T. Me-lander, 536–46. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

Serra Ridgway, F.R. 2004–2006. “Revisiting the Etruscan Underworld.” Accordia Research Papers 10:127–41.

Shapiro, H.A. 1989. Art and Cult Under the Tyrants in Athens. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.

———. 2000. “Modest Athletes and Liberated Women: Etruscans on Attic Black-Figure Vases.” In Not the Clas-sical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art, edited by B. Cohen, 315–37. Leiden: Brill.

Shear, T.L., Jr. 1993. “The Persian Destruction of Athens: Evidence from Agora Deposits.” Hesperia 62:383–482.

Sieveking, J., and R. Hackl. 1912. Die Königliche Vasensam-mlung zu München. Vol. 1, Die älteren nichtattischen Vasen. Munich: J.B. Obernetter.

Simon, E. 2006. “Gods in Harmony: The Etruscan Pan-theon.” In The Religion of the Etruscans, edited by N.T. de Grummond and E. Simon, 45–65. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Slane, K.W., and M.W. Dickie. 1993. “A Knidian Phallic Vase from Corinth.” Hesperia 62:483–505.

Small, J.P. 1994a. “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Etruscan Banquets.” In Murlo and the Etruscans: Art and Society in Ancient Etruria, edited by R.D. De Puma and J.P. Small, 85–94. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

———. 1994b. “Scholars, Etruscans, and Attic Painted Vases.” JRA 7:34–58.

Società Hercle. 1964. Materiali di antichità varia. Vol. 2, Scavi a Vulci: Materiale concesso alla Società Hercle. Rome:

Società Hercle.Sotheby, S.L., and J. Wilkinson. 1859. Catalogue of the Cel-

ebrated and Well-Known Collection of Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Indian, Peruvian, Mexi-can, and Chinese Antiquities Formed By B. Hertz and Now the Property of Joseph Mayer, To Be Sold at Auction on the 7th of February 1859. Auction catalogue. London: Davy.

Sparkes, B.A., and L. Talcott. 1970. Black and Plain Pottery of the 6th, 5th & 4th Centuries B.C. Agora 12. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Spivey, N. 1987. The Micali Painter and His Followers. Ox-ford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford Uni-versity Press.

———. 1988. “Il pittore di Micali.” In Un artista etrusco e il suo mondo: Il pittore di Micali, edited by M.A. Rizzo, 11–21. Studi di archeologia 5. Rome: De Luca.

———. 1991. “Greek Vases in Etruria.” In Looking at Greek Vases, edited by T.B. Rasmussen and N. Spivey, 131–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 2006. “Greek Vases in Etruria.” AJA 110(4):659–61.———. 2007. “Volcanic Landscape with Craters.” GaR 54:

229–53.Spivey, N., and T. Rasmussen. 1986. “Dioniso e i pirati nel

Toledo Museum of Art.” Prospettiva 44:2–8.Steingräber, S. 2006. Abundance of Life: Etruscan Wall Paint-

ing. Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum.Steinhart, M. 1995. Das Motiv des Auges in der griechischen

Bildkunst. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.Stewart, A. 2008. “The Persian and Carthaginian Invasions

of 480 B.C.E. and the Beginning of the Classical Style: Part 1, The Stratigraphy, Chronology, and Significance of the Acropolis Deposits.” AJA 112(3):377–412.

Stissi, V. 1999. “Production, Circulation, and Consumption of Archaic Greek Pottery (Sixth and Early Fifth Centu-ries B.C.).” In The Complex Past of Pottery: Production, Cir-culation and Consumption of Mycenaean and Greek Pottery (16th–Early 5th Centuries B.C.). Proceedings of the ARCHON International Conference, Held in Amsterdam, 8–9 Novem-ber 1996, edited by J.P. Crielaard, V. Stissi, and G.J. van Wijngaarden, 83–113. Amsterdam: Gieben.

———. 2003. “From Catalogue to Cultural Context: Bring-ing Life to Greek Sanctuary Pottery.” In Griechische Keramik im kulturellen Kontext: Akten des Internationalen Vasen-Symposions in Kiel vom 24–28.9.2001 veranstaltet durch das Archäologische Institut der Christian-Albrechts- Universität zu Kiel, edited by B. Schmaltz and M. Söldner, 77–9. Kiel: Scriptorum.

———. 2009. “Does Function Follow Form? Archaic Greek Pottery in Its Find Contexts: Uses and Meanings.” In The World of Greek Vases, edited by V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis, 23–43. AnalRom Suppl. 41. Rome: Quasar.

Stoop, M.W. 1979. “Note sugli scavi nel santuario di Atena sul Timpone della Motta.” BABesch 54:77–84.

Strandberg Olofsson, M. 1996. “Celebration or Death? Aspects of a New Amphora from the Micali Painter’s Workshop and the Iconography of Etruscan Black- Figured Vases.” OpRom 21:107–18.

Torelli, M. 1997. “Limina averni: Realtà e rappresentazi-one nella pittura tarquiniese arcaica.” Ostraka 6:63–86.

———, ed. 2000. The Etruscans. New York: Rizzoli.———. 2002. “Ideologia e paesaggi della morte in Etruria

tra arcaismo ed età ellenistica.” In Iconografia 2001: Studi sull’immagine. Atti del Convegno, Padova, 20 maggio–1 giugno 2001, edited by I. Colpo, I. Favaretto, and F. Ghedini,



45–60. Antenor Quaderni 1. Rome: Quasar.Tosto, V. 1999. The Black-Figure Pottery Signed Nikosthene-

sepoiesen. Allard Pierson Series 11. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum.

Tsingarida, A. 2009. “Vases for Heroes and Gods: Early Red-Figure Parade Cups and Large-Scaled Phialai.” In Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th–4th Centuries B.C.): Proceedings of the Symposium Held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, 27–29 April 2006, edited by A. Tsingarida, 185–201. Études d’archéologie classique 3. Brussels: CreA-Patrimoine.

———. 2011. “Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse! Vases à boire monumentaux et célébrations divines.” In Nourrir les dieux? Sacrifice et représentation du divin. Actes de la VIe rencontre du Groupe de recherche euro-péen “Figura, représentation du divin dans les sociétés grecque et romaine” (Université de Liège, 23–24 octobre 2009), edited by V. Pirenne-Delforge and F. Prescendi, 59–78. Kernos Suppl. 26. Liège: Centre International d’Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique.

———. Forthcoming. “Special Vases for the Etruscans? Re-ception and Uses of Outsized Athenian Drinking Ves-sels.” In Greek Pots Abroad, edited by T. Mannack, R.R.R. Smith, and D. Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tuck, A. 1994. “The Etruscan Seated Banquet: Villanovan Ritual and Etruscan Iconography.” AJA 98(4):617–28.

Tuna-Nörling, Y. 1995. Die Attisch-Schwarzfigurige Keramik und der Attische Keramikexport nach Kleinasien: Die Aus-grabungen von Alt-Smyrna und Pitane. IstForsch 41. Tübin-gen: Ernst Wasmuth.

———. 1997. “Attic Black-Figure Export to the East: The ‘Tyrrhenian Group’ in Ionia.” In Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, edited by J.H. Oak-ley, W.D.E. Coulson, and O. Palagia, 435–46. Oxbow Monograph 67. Oxford: Oxbow.

Ure, A.D. 1955. “Krokotos and White Heron.” JHS 75: 90–103.

Vanderpool, E. 1946. “The Rectangular Rock-Cut Shaft.” Hesperia 15:265–336.

van Dommelen, P. 1997. “Colonial Constructs: Colonial-ism and Archaeology in the Mediterranean.” WorldArch 28:305–23.

van Kampen, I. 2009. “Stone Sculpture in the Context of Etruscan Tombs: A Note on Its Position.” In Votives, Places, and Rituals in Etruscan Religion: Studies in Honor of Jean MacIntosh Turfa, edited by M. Gleba and H. Beck-er, 135–55. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 166. Leiden: Brill.

Venit, M.S. 1982. “Painted Pottery from the Greek Main-land Found in Egypt, 650–450 B.C.” Ph.D. diss., New York University.

Villanueva-Puig, M.-C. 2004. “Des coupes à yeux de la céramique grecque.” JSav :3–20.

Villard, F. 1946. “L’évolution des coupes attiques à figures noires (580–480).” RÉA 48:153–80.

———. 2006. “Sur l’origine des fragments Campana du Louvre.” In Les clients de la céramique grecque: Actes du col-loque de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, 30–31 janvier 2004, edited by J. de la Genière, 155–56.

Cahiers du CVA 1. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

von Mehren, M. 2001. “Two Groups of Attic Amphorae as Export Ware for Etruria: The So-Called Tyrrhenian Group and ‘Nikosthenic Amphorae.’” In Ceramics in Context: Proceedings of the Internordic Colloquium on Ancient Pottery, Held at Stockholm, 13–15 June 1997, edited by C. Scheffer, 45–53. Stockholm Studies in Classical Archaeol-ogy 12. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International.

Walsh, J. St. P. 2013. “Consumption and Choice in Ancient Sicily.” In Regionalism and Globalism in Antiquity: Exploring Their Limits, edited by F. De Angelis, 229–45. Colloquia Antiqua 7. Leuven and Paris: Peeters.

———. 2014. Consumerism in the Ancient World: Imports and Identity Construction. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies 17. London and New York: Routledge.

Walsh, J. St. P., and C. Antonaccio. 2014. “Athenian Black Gloss Pottery: A View from the West.” OJA 33:47–67.

Warden, P.G. 2011. “The Temple Is a Living Thing: Frag-mentation, Enchainment, and Reversal of Ritual at the Acropolis Sanctuary of Poggio Colla.” In The Archaeol-ogy of Sanctuaries and Ritual in Etruria, edited by N.T. de Grummond and I. Edlund-Berry, 55–67. JRA Suppl. 81. Portsmouth, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology.

Weber-Lehmann, C. 2007. “The Evidence for Wooden Sar-cophagi in Etruscan Tombs.” EtrStud 10:141–51.

Werner, I. 2005. Dionysos in Etruria: The Ivy Leaf Group. Ac-taRom 4°, 58. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Rom.

Whitley, J. 2002. “Objects with Attitude: Biographical Facts and Fallacies in the Study of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Warrior Graves.” CAJ 12:217–32.

Williams, D. 1988. “The Late Archaic Class of Eye Cups.” In Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Ancient Greek and Related Pottery: Copenhagen, August 31–September 4, 1987, edited by J. Christiansen and T. Melander, 675–83. Co-penhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

———. 1992. “The Brygos Tomb Reassembled and 19th-Century Commerce in Capuan Antiquities.” AJA 96(4): 617–36.

———. 2013. “Greek Potters and Painters: Marketing and Movings.” In Pottery Markets in the Ancient Greek World (8th–1st Centuries B.C.): Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at the Université libre de Bruxelles, 19–21 June 2008, edited by A. Tsingarida and D. Viviers, 39–60. Études d’archéologie 5. Brussels: CReA-Patrimoine.

Wójcik, M.R. 1989. Museo Claudio Faina di Orvieto: Ceramica attica a figure nere. Perugia: Electa Editori Umbri Associati.

Yatromanolakis, D. 2009. “Symposia, Noses, Πρόσωπα: A Kylix in the Company of Banqueters on the Ground.” In An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Paint-ing and Contemporary Methodologies, edited by D. Yatro-manolakis, 414–64. Athens: A. Kardamitsa.

Zifferero, A. 2005. “La produzione e il commercio del vino in Etruria.” In Vinum: Un progetto per il riconoscimento del-la vite silvestre nel paesaggio archeologico della Toscana e del Lazio settentrionale, edited by A. Ciacci and A. Zifferero, 97–120. Siena: Ci. Vin.


Athenian Eye Cups in Context

Documents

Transcript of Athenian Eye Cups in Context