The Daily Grind of Ancient Greece: Mortars and Mortaria between Symbol and Reality (2009)

Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases(7th– 4th centuries B.C.)

Edited byAthena Tsingarida

ÉTUDES D’ARCHÉOLOGIE 3

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Études d’archéologie 3Études d’Archéologie Classique de l'ULB 4

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Alexandra V

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In any domestic excavation, undecorated so-called “coarse-wares” at least equal and often outnumber fine, decorated pottery. Looking, for example, at the Attic Dema (late 5th century BC) and Vari (c. 300 BC) houses as well as several 4th century BC houses at Halieis in the Argolid, one finds that fine wares, mostly related to drinking, make up about half of the pottery finds, while the other half is taken up by plain or coarse household wares1. Among these, cooking pots often feature especially large. In the houses at Halieis they make up between 8 and 20%; another 10% are food preparation vessels, especially lekanai, i.e. multi-purpose mixing bowls. %e latter are even more prominent in the Attic houses, making up nearly one third of coarse household pottery finds. Yet relatively little attention tends to be paid by scholars to these humble containers of limited aesthetic appeal. %e questions they pose seem easily answered, compared to the intricate issues of iconography, style, status and trade that are to be considered in relation to Archaic and Classical painted wares. A cooking pot is a cooking pot. But it is becoming increasingly clear that this does not have to be the whole story, and that issues of food technology, trade, technology transfer, changing dining customs, cultural interaction, symbolic meaning and ritual functions related to household pottery and other domestic equipment provide as

1 Many scholars have generously shared their knowledge and given their time to aid the research presented in this essay; I am particularly indebted to Volkmar von Graeve and the members of the Miletos excavation team, to Dyfri Williams, Ronny Reich, Susan Woodford, François Lissarrague, and the participants of the conference from which the present volume has arisen. To Athena Tsingarida I extend my special gratitude for having organised such a stimulating conference and for the opportunity to present my research in this context.

rich a field for enhancing our knowledge of ancient Greece as the study of painted fine pottery.From among these ubiquitous and under-regarded household implements, two are to be considered here: the plain, shallow grinding bowl (Greek thyeia, Latin mortarium)2, and the large, pounding trough (Greek holmos, Latin pila) which is in some ways its larger sibling. Both holmos and thyeia were essentially destined for the mincing of foods; they share the application of a pestle in a hollow bowl, and are today commonly subsumed under the term “mortar”. %is led to much confusion particularly in earlier literature on the topic, where both mortaria and holmoi were considered as essentially identical primitive mills for producing flour, though in the past fifty years the situation has been considerably clarified3. Indeed, ancient evidence clearly reveals distinct differences between the two shapes, both through written texts and the archaeological record, and is also supported by ethnographic parallels. Differences extend to scale and shape, a different

2 Mortaria have been the subject of an earlier study of mine (V, “Bowls”), which focused on the mortaria found at the Greek trading post of Naukratis in Egypt. A further, in-depth study of the usage of mortaria (V and P, “Mortaria”), and a wider study of their production and trade are in preparation. 3 %e distinction between holmoi and mortaria was made clear especially by M, Grain-mills, 22-28; see also S, “Greek Kitchen”; “Addenda”; C, Olynthus, 163-169. Nevertheless, confusion still sometimes reigns in modern literature; see, e.g. a recent study of Roman mortaria which erroneously equates the Roman mortarium with the Greek holmos (S. P, I mortaria di produzione centro-italica: corpus dei bolli, Rome, 2002, 33). Even Amyx, who otherwise lucidly and correctly discusses shape and function of holmoi, connects bowl-shaped terracotta mortaria with holmoi and suggests that they might have shared the same name and even function, A, “Attic Stelai”, 237.

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action that was carried out in them (pounding in the holmos versus grinding in the mortarium), different materials that were processed in them, and the different materials they were made of: only one of them – the mortarium – is, at least in Archaic and Classical Greece, primarily a pottery vessel, whereas the other, the holmos, was most commonly made from wood or stone. %e following examination of thyeiai and holmoi intends to revisit and further clarify their respective areas of usage, consider their production and distribution, and put forward some new thoughts on their role in Greek life and cult and in Mediterranean networks of contact, transfer and trade.

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%e mortarium, or thyeia, was a ubiquitous item in every Greek household – as well as in many Greek sanctuaries – at least from the Late Archaic period onwards. In the Attic Dema and Vari houses mentioned above, mortaria make up approximately 4%-8% of the household/kitchen pottery assemblage, though at Halieis no more than 1%4. %eir numbers are thus not necessarily

4 %e statistics are based on S. R, “How did pots function within the landscape of daily living?”, in: M.-C. V-P, F. L, P. R and A. R (ed), Céramique et peinture grecques – modes d’emploi, Paris, 1999, 63-67; J. E. J, L.H. S and A.J. G, “%e Dema House in Attica”, BSA 57 (1962), 75-114; J.E. J, A.J. G and L.H. S, “An Attic Country House below the Cave of Pan at Vari”, BSA 68 (1973), 355-452; and B. A, !e Excavations at Ancient Halieis 2, !e Houses: !e Organization and Use of Domestic Space, Bloomington, 2005, 143-4, table 19 (counting both the floors and ‘negative features’); cf. also L. F, “House Clearance: Unpacking the ‘kitchen’ in Classical Greece”, in: R. W, N. F and J. W (ed), Building

very large – they are considerably less common than cooking pots and the ubiquitous lekanai5 – but their presence is consistent. A particular prevalence of mortaria can, by contrast, be observed in the Eastern Mediterranean. At 7th and 6th century BC Miletos, for example, among the vast quantities of plain and coarse household wares the ratio between cooking pots, lekanai and mortaria is more balanced, with mortaria perhaps even outnumbering lekanai and cooking pots. %e same tendency is mirrored further East, where, for example, the site of Apollonia-Arsuf in Israel in the late 6th to mid-4th centuries BC has yielded a percentage of mortaria in the overall settlement assemblage of 10.9–11.3%, with mortaria in the earliest phase outnumbering cooking pots6.

%e mortaria of Miletos7 are, in fact, a good starting point, since they raise some far-reaching questions

Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond, London, 2007, 233-242, esp. 241 fig. 25.5. See also M. B and B. ’A, “La vase céramique grec dans ses espaces: l’habitat, la tombe”, in: M.-C. V-P, F. L, P. R and A. R (ed), Céramique et peinture grecques – modes d’emploi, Paris, 1999, 75-90. 5 On lekanai and their uses, see most recently G. L, Die Lekane. Typologie und Chronologie einer Leitform der attischen Gebrauchskeramik des 6. – 1. Jahrhunderts v.Chr., Rahden, 1999.6 I. R and O. T (ed), Apollonia-Arsuf I. !e Persian and Hellenistic Periods, Tel Aviv, 1999, 96-99,153-155. %e overall ratio between “common ware” and “imported fine ware” is 78% versus 22% in the Early Persian and 92% versus 8% in the Late Persian period.7 %e observations summarised in the following paragraphs are set out in more detail in M. S and A. V, “Scientific Investigation of Pottery Grinding Bowls in the Archaic and Classical Eastern Mediterranean”, British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 3 (2009), forthcoming. A general study of the bowls from Miletos that is currently under way by the author.

1. Mortaria from Miletus, main types: a: K92.958.1 (Cypriot); b: K91.306.5 (local imitation of Cypriot); c: K91.406.4 (local ring-footed and spouted)

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with regard to the trade of mortaria and the spread of culinary habits. %roughout the 7th and 6th as well as in the 5th centuries BC mortaria form a consistently strong group among the domestic wares of Miletos. %ey are remarkably varied in shape and fabric (fig. 1), but most examples show clear traces of abrasion and thus of grinding. %e most common type, present throughout the 7th and 6th centuries BC, is an undecorated, shallow bowl made of a buff clay that is otherwise not attested among Milesian pottery. It has a flat base, a roughly conical shape often with a slightly wavy outer wall, and a folded ovoid rim, and looks as though it was produced with considerable haste (fig. 1a). A thinner walled version of the same shape made from brown clay has the same date range (fig. 1b), while a rather different hemispherical bowl with a ring base and a spout, painted with a white slip and stripes, seems not to appear before the mid-6th century BC (fig. 1c). %is latter type is clearly made from local clay and of local production; the first type, however, was imported from Cyprus. Mortaria of similar shape and buff clay are found practically everywhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus and the Levant, and it appears that Cyprus (alongside perhaps North Syria?) was a major production and export centre. As has been argued elsewhere in greater detail8, one might almost speak of an Eastern Mediterranean koine for this type, a koine from which mainland Greece was largely excluded but which, to some degree, extended westwards as far as North Africa, Italy and Spain, with both trade and local imitation of the type. Indeed, the second Milesian mortarium type is almost certainly a local emulation of this type. On the mainland, it seems the Cypro-Phoenician mortarium took a foothold only at Corinth, one of the few mainland Greek sites to receive imports of such mortaria9. Local potters soon developed it further and turned their own production of mortaria in the typical sturdy Corinthian tile fabric into popular export items across the Mediterranean, an observation that contradicts the widespread misconception that Greek “coarse”, household pottery was not traded10. Miletos, too, in

8 V, “Bowls”.9 Corinth C-40-312 (S. W, “A Cross-Section of Corinthian Antiquities (Excavations of 1940)”, Hesperia 17 (1948), 197-241, esp. 228, no. D79, pl. 84) and C-73-163 (unpublished, from lot 73-57). Both examples will be fully published by V and P, “Mortaria”.10 %e possibility of trade had so far been widely conceded

the 5th century BC was among the recipients of such Corinthian spouted collar-rim mortaria (fig. 2). Mortaria, then, no less than fine wares, could be the subject of specialised production and a commodity of trade appreciated for its particular quality, and hence potentially equally indicative of trade links and cultural influences. What could be seen at many a Greek dinner party, served in fine imported crockery, was thus not only foods imported from far-flung regions but also foods processed with specially imported utensils.

What precisely was the function that warranted such specialised production and trade11? For Classical Athens, sources such as Aristophanes12 clearly link

only for cooking pots. %e phenomenon and its wider implications had, of course, long been observed for Roman mortaria; see, e.g., D. B, “Reibschale und Romanisierung”, Rei Cretaria Romanae Fautorum Acta 17/18 (1977), 147-158, esp. 154-155. Corinthian mortaria have been found as far away as, for example, Histria (P. A, Histria IV. La céramique d’époque archaïque et classique (VIIe-IVe s.), Bucharest, 1978, 111-112, no. 729, fig. 27; P. A, Histria VII. La zone sacrée d’époque grecque (Fouilles 1915-1989), Bucharest, 2005, 357, no. C157 and 394, fig. 47.1), Cyrene (G. T, !e Necropolis of Cyrene: Two Hundred Years of Exploration, Rome, 2005, 638, nos. 184-5, figs. 377, 4102), Naukratis (V, “Bowls”, 33, figs. 10-13 and 41, nos. 21-24) and Velia (V. G, Velia-Studien 2. Materielle Kultur und kulturelle Identität in Elea in spätarchaisch-frühklassischer Zeit. Untersuchungen zur Gefäß- und Baukeramik aus der Unterstadt. Grabungen 1987-1994, Vienna, 2003, 97, fig. 41).11 As this question is treated in more detail in V and P, “Mortaria”, only a brief summary is given here.12 %e most important reference is Ar. Peace 228-288, but see also Frogs 123-124; Clouds 676; Wasps 924-992; Wealth 710-720; fr. 7. Note also Anaxippos’ list (ap. Ath. 403-4) of seasonings that could be ground in a mortarium (thyeia): cheese, cumin, vinegar, silphion, and coriander.

2. Corinthian spouted collar-rim morta-rium from Miletos, WB80.1560/1563

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mortaria primarily with the processing of spicy sauces and relishes, including the garlic, herb and cheese sauce myttotos and many other related potent herb and spice mixtures – quite similar to the way Apicius describes the use of Roman mortaria. %ey were one of the tools of the professional cook and were present in every household. Terracotta figurines from Late Archaic Boeotia and Classical Corinth, which show men, women and monkeys (probably imitating women) (fig. 3a) with mortaria and pestles of Archaic and Classical types, support this picture. Among the most interesting representations is a Corinthian mule that carries on his back a mortarium of typical Corinthian shape full of tools (pestle, cheese-grater) and ingredients (cheese, garlic) (fig. 3b)13. Additional uses, such as the crushing and mashing of nuts and seeds, as well as quite possibly pulses, vegetables, and porridge, may seem likely, at least in those areas of the Eastern Mediterranean where mortaria are particularly frequent14.

13 London, British Museum GR 1903.5-18.4 (Terracotta 958) and GR 1873.8-20.576 (Terracotta 969): R.A. H, Catalogue of the Terracottas in the Department of the Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, London, 1954, 260, no. 958, 263, no. 969, pls. 135.958 and 136.969. Tis group of terracotta figurines is discussed in more detail in V and P, “Mortaria”. 14 Cheese-curdling, along with the measuring of grain-rations, by contrast, can confidently be dismissed as uses for mortaria; see most recently V, “Bowls”, 34, with n. 18, and G.S. M, !e Greek Tile Works at Corinth. Athens, Princeton, 2006 [Hesperia Supplement 35], 44.

Against this background, the presence of mortaria in many sanctuaries in Greece, both on the mainland, the islands and in East Greece, can be explained by their use in the preparation of ritual meals. Sometimes this role seems to have been rather significant, as can be gleaned from a number of cases in which mortaria carry votive inscriptions, most notably in Apollo’s sanctuary in the Archaic Greek trading post of Naukratis15. Additional use in healing sanctuaries – such as the Corinthian Asklepieion – for the mixing of medications and for preparing food and drink for the sick seem likely, as is suggested by Aristophanes as well as medical literature16. Mortaria thus played a diverse role in ancient Greece, touching on more than just one aspect of life. Most commonly belonging in the realm of female preparation of food in the home, it seems they could also acquire roles in the more male domain of certain cults, in medicine and for dinner parties. Fittingly, their distribution in sanctuaries encompasses sanctuaries of goddesses such as Hera, Demeter, Artemis and Aphrodite, but it also extends to Apollo and Asklepios17.

P :

From the Attic stelai we know that holmoi, like mortaria, were common household equipment. As Hesiod, Op. 423, points out18 they often would have been made of wood (the earliest form must have been a hollowed-out tree trunk) and used with a wooden pestle. Sometimes they might also have been made of stone, or perhaps, though surely rarely, of terracotta19. As regards their size,

15 See V, “Bowls”.16 Ar. Wealth 710-720; for medical literature see e.g. W. H, Lateinische Gefässnamen, Düsseldorf, 1969, 226. Also for the crushing and mixing of pigments and minerals mortaria would have been used.17 See V, “Bowls”, 36.18 %e holmoi mentioned in Aristophanes (Wasps 201, 238), too, are large, wooden objects; no information as to their use can be gleaned from these references but it is clear that they are thought of as ubiquitous implements in the Greek household.19 In the Attic stelai, three holmoi are listed: one of stone, at a price of 8 drachmai 5 obols, one of wood (costing at least 3 drachmai 3 obols – the reading is uncertain), and one of which the material is not stated but of which Amyx

3. Corinthian terracotta figurines, early 4th century BC; a: monkey playing with a mortarium, London British Museum GR 1903.5-18.4 (Terracotta 958); b: mule carrying a mortarium containing a pestle, a bunch of garlic, a loaf of cheese and a cheesegrater. London, British Museum GR 1873.8-20.576 (Terracotta 969) (photographs courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum)

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Hesiod recommends three feet for the mortar and three cubits in length for the pestle – both were thus sizeable objects. Actual surviving examples of holmoi are rare. Fourteen stone holmoi were found at Olynthos; one of them was likely to have been used in agricultural processing, another in a bakery20. A considerable number of stone holmoi are also known from Delos, especially from houses, shops and industrial establishments21. Pestles, by contrast, must all have been of perishable material, almost certainly wood.

Regarding the uses of holmoi, several representations in 6th and 5th century BC vase-painting as well as terracotta figurines show women pounding with a large, elongated pestle that is narrow in the middle into a holmos in the shape of a large standed bowl. %e context is usually clearly a domestic female one, but sometimes also a ritual one. An Attic red-figure cup of 460-50 BC, for example22, depicts a lesson in the use of the pestle attended by two women, complemented on the other side by a scene around an oven. We find joint, rhythmic pounding by two women represented on several vases of the Late Archaic period, such as an Attic black-figured amphora by the Swing Painter23 – the earliest known Attic representation of the scene – or a fragment from Eleusis24. A Boeotian black-figured lekythos of the mid-6th century BC represents different stages of breadmaking and includes two women pounding away in a large holmos25. And on a late 6th century BC Boeotian skyphos (fig. ), one of the women pounding is called Rhodoma or Kodoma, a name that has been interpreted as “toaster of grain”26. A context

suspects that it is of terracotta, due to its low price of 1 drachma 5 obols; see A, “Attic Stelai”, 236, 282-284.20 C, Olynthus, 166-167.21 D, Délos 18, 103-107.22 Collection Nicholas S. Zoullas: N, “Kitchen”, 54-58, fig. 4.1-4. 23 St Petersburg 2065: E. B, Der Schaukelmaler, Mainz, 1982, 51, 96, no. 113, pl. 116; ABV 309.95.24 Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 1055: AM 41 (1916), 58, fig. 13.25 Serpieri collection: S, “Greek Kitchen”, pl. 7,2.26 Athens, Kanellopoulos Museum 384; the most comprehensive publication and discussion is still J.-J. M, “Collection Paul Canellopoulos: les vases”, BCH 99 (1975), 409-520, esp. 467-476, figs. 29-30.

of grain processing is found again in a terracotta group27 that seems to depict a bakery, with different kinds of work related to the preparation of grain, the shaping of loaves, and to the actual baking, also including two women pounding in a holmos. Other terracotta figurines, particularly ones of 6th and early 5th century BC Boeotian manufacture, found in tombs – though one also comes from a sanctuary of Demeter28 – show single women pounding with a large pestle in a pedestalled holmos29, or working in a holmos while the pestle lies on the ground beside

27 Athens, National Museum 5773: A, “Attic Stelai”, 234-235, pl. 50b. Terracotta figurines depicting women at the holmos have been collected most recently by P, “Vita quotidiana”, 13-14, nos. 49-61.28 From Catania, sanctuary of Demeter, Sicilian, late 6th – early 5th century BC: BdA 45, s. 4 (1960), 253, 258, fig. 19,2; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 52.29 E.g. New York, MMA 56.63, about 500 BC (S, “Addenda”, 162, no. 33A, pl. 29.4 (forms pair with figurine of woman grinding flour) ; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 57. Berlin, Antikensammlung 7681, late 6th century BC, from Tanagra (AM 41 (1916), 57, fig. 12 ; S, “Greek Kitchen”, 135, no. 31 ; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 56). Paris, Musée du Louvre CA 2141, late 6th century BC (S. M-B, Musée National du Louvre, Catalogue raisonné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grecs, étrusques et romains, I. Epoques préhellénique, géométrique, archaïque et classique, Paris, 1954, no. B121, pl. 16 ; S, “Greek Kitchen”, 135, no. 33 ; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 54). From Akanthos, tomb 1427, statuette 1119, late 6th – early 5th century BC (N.E. K, Άκανθος Ι: Η Ανασκαφή στο Νεκροταφείο κατά το 1979, Athens, 1998, 65, 70, no. 18 ; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 59).

4. Athens, Kanellopoulos Museum 384. Boeotian black-figure skyphos, c. 525-500 BC, depicting two women working with hyperon and holmos (photograph courtesy of the First Ephorate of Athens / Kanellopoulos Museum)

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it30. Often the bowl of the holmos is filled with small to medium-sized rounded lumps and sometimes a bowl with small rounded lumps is placed next to the holmos. If this is the material that is to be pounded, it seems at first glance too large to be grain, but perhaps we need to make allowances for the coroplast’s difficulty in accurately representing a bowl full of grain; alternatively one might even suspect a reference to a finished product, such as small cakes or maza31. A link with the processing of grain is certainly corroborated by ancient sources32. %ese indicate that for the hulling or de-husking of grain (notably

30 Paris, Musée du Louvre CA 458, late 6th century BC, from Tanagra (S. M-B, Musée National du Louvre, Catalogue raisonné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grecs, étrusques et romains, I. Epoques préhellénique, géométrique, archaïque et classique, Paris, 1954, no. B120, pl. 16 ; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 55).31 S. M-B, Musée National du Louvre, Catalogue raisonné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grecs, étrusques et romains, I. Epoques préhellénique, géométrique, archaïque et classique, Paris, 1954, 21, no. B120, describes them as “boulettes de pâte”. A painted figurine from the Athenian Kerameikos of late 6th – early 5th century BC date features white dots inside the holmos bowl, equivalent to the lumpy bits of other terracotta figurines. %is particular figurine once had movable arms and was obviously a girl’s toy: Athens, Kerameikos Museum T.815 (P, “Vita quotidiana”, 13-14, no. 50, fig. 15; N, “Kitchen”, 58-59, fig. 4.5). Some vaguely related pieces, which feature similar compositions but lack pestles and may well not show pounding, include a Boeotian 6th century BC figurine of a woman with a small standed bowl in front of her (Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum 233: S, “Greek Kitchen”, no. 76; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 60), a Classical Boeotian figurine of a woman seated in front of a standed bowl holding a tray with objects (fish?) (Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum B 2731, 2nd half 5th– early 4th century BC: W. S, Katalog der antiken Terrakotten im Badischen Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, Göteborg, 1989, pl. 17, fig. 82; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 14, no. 53), and an unusual Cypriot figurine (Berlin, Antikenmuseum 74/786, 7th-6th century BC: V. K, !e Coroplastic Art of Ancient Cyprus IV, !e Cypro-Archaic Period, Small Male Figurines, Nicosia, 1995, 143-144, fig. 97, pl. 82.6, no. III(vi)2).32 Evidence collected and discussed by M, Grain-mills; P, “Vita quotidiana”; A, “Attic Stelai”; S, “Greek Kitchen”; “Addenda”; B, “Mörsersymbolik” (extensive collection and discussion especially of holmoi and hypera); most recently, see also N, “Kitchen”; L, Athenian Woman, 67-70.

barley and emmer)33, a holmos would have been used, in which the grain was pounded with the help of a wooden pestle (hyperon). %e find of a substantial primary deposit of desiccated emmer chaff around a limestone mortar at the Amarna Workmen’s Village (c. 1350 BC) clearly shows that this practice was common already in Pharaonic Egypt34. It was only after this pounding that the heavy-duty grinding of corn for flour was performed with the help of special stone mills, such as the saddle quern or later the hopper rubber. In addition, the holmos could also be used for crushing grain so as to produce cracked wheat and the like: Cato (Agr. 14.2), for example, lists “a little mortar [pila] in which to crush wheat”, and a scholion on Hesiod (Op. 421ter.3) describes the holmos as a kind of mortarium in which peasants cut up millet35. %is ancient evidence is supported by modern observations: in the 19th century, David Livingstone reported the pounding of corn in Africa in a large wooden mortar with a long pestle, with “two or three women at one mortar […]; by the operation of pounding with the aid of a little water, the hard outside husk of the grain is removed, and the corn made fit for the millstone”36. %e practice persists in Africa and elsewhere37 to the

33 Esp. Pliny N.H. 18.73; see also 18.97-8, with reference to the Latin holmos equivalent, pila. See also M, Grain-mills, 22-28. On barley and emmer, see T. B, “Barley Cakes and Emmer Bread”, in: J. W et al. (ed), Food in Antiquity, Exeter, 1995, 25-37. 34 D. S, “Bread Making and Social Interaction at the Amarna Workmen’s Village, Egypt”, in: K.D. T (ed), Food Technology in its Social Context, London, 1999, 121-144, esp. 131. See also A, “Attic Stelai”, 237, with reference to Egyptian representations of mortaria being used for dehusking.35 See also Pliny NH 18.112, for grain being first de-husked and then broken up with an iron-capped pestle in a wooden mortar; see M, Grain-mills, 26. On Roman mortars and their uses, see also most recently D.A. T, A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome, Leiden, , 32-37. Compare also Herodotus’ (1.200) reference to Babylonians pounding dried fish in a holmos. 36 Quoted by M, Grain-mills, 27. See also B, “Mörsersymbolik”, 256-257, n. 69, figs. 14a-b; P. M, “L’uso dei mortai di terracotta nell’alimentazione antica”, Studi classici e orientali 36 (1986), 239-277, esp. 249, ns. 51, 52.37 E.g. in the modern Near East: see G. D, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina III. Von der Ernte zum Mehl, Hildesheim, 1964, 213-215, with reference to modern

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present day, with mortars – commonly made from a hollowed-out tree-trunk – and pestles virtually identical in appearance to those known from ancient representations being used most commonly for de-husking grain or rice, but also for producing coarse, cracked grain as well as for the mashing of nuts and other foodstuffs38. Indeed, such grain-pounding troughs appear to have been nearly universal tools that in some shape or other were used by agricultural societies across the globe39. %e specific shape and use of the Greek holmos, however, with its rhythmic pounding with paddle-shaped pestles by two women, is remarkably close to the African tradition40, and one may suspect it to be another example for the transfer of food processing technology. %e phenomenon is witnessed again millennia later, when the wide-spread use of exactly the same kind of mortar for the de-husking of rice on American rice plantations from the 18th century onwards (fig. 5) must be attributed to practices

Iraq and Palestine, where a use for mincing meat and crushing coffee beans is also attested. %e version of the holmos with wooden mallets rather than pestles, as it was and is in use in some regions of the world (see e.g. I. J, Greek and Roman Life, London, 1986, 19, fig. 17: production of pilgouri in latter-day Greece), does not appear to have been common in ancient Greece.38 %at holmoi may also have been used for crushing and mixing is put forward also by A, “Attic Stelai”, 237. See also H.-G. B, “Steinerne Dreifussschalen des ägäischen Kulturkreises und ihre Beziehungen zum. Osten”, JdI 78 (1963), 1-77, esp. 67, n. 93, who believes that a proverbial phrase hyperou peristrophe preserved in Plutarch 2.1072b, (see also Plato, !eaitetos 209e) suggest a circular movement of the hyperon, rather than the common up-and-down pounding seen on many of the representations of holmoi in action. One could, however, argue that the continual up and down of the pestle equally constitutes a seemingly eternal cycle of motion. 39 From Africa to Native America and Indonesia, the large wooden mortar and pestle appear to have been in use most commonly for the de-husking of various types of grains, rice, corn and even coffee. Rhythmic pounding and music are associated with it in many places; note, e.g. the Indonesian pounding music gejok lesung.40 Its ultimate origins quite possibly lie in ancient Egypt; see e.g. a man pounding in a mortar in a tomb painting of Ramses III at %ebes: J.G. W, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, London, 1837, vol. II, 383; see also D. S, “Bread Making and Social Interaction at the Amarna Workmen’s Village, Egypt”, in: K.D. T (ed), Food Technology in its Social Context, London, 1999, 121-144.

introduced by West African slaves41. Across time and cultures work with the pounding trough was women’s work, and ancient Greece was no exception. Holmoi appear as a regular feature of Greek women’s lives; that they were easily to hand can be seen from mythological representations such as of the sack of Troy, where the large pestle (hyperon) is the quintessential female weapon42. %e processing of grain generally fell squarely into the female sphere of responsibility for transforming the wild fruits of the earth into nourishing domestic consumables, and at least as far as we can tell from Athenian sources, everything to do with grain and bread-making appears to have been the task of women, who are referred to frequently as baking women and

41 See www.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/Plantations/plantations/Rice_Cultivation.htm (12/06/2007).42 See B, “Mörsersymbolik” and F. L, “Orphée mis à mort”, Musica e Storia 2 (1994), 269-307, esp. 280-292.

5. Sapelo Island, Georgia, US, between 1915 and 1934: two women hulling rice with pestle and mortar on a rice plantation (photograph: SAP-93, Vanishing Georgia, Georgia Division of Archives and History, Office of Secretary of State; courtesy of Georgia Archives)

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bread sellers43. It thus comes as no surprise that the pestle takes on the role of a quintessential attribute of female labour and domesticity in the service of husband and family (as well as household prosperity and fertility); it was even meant to be suspended outside the bridal chamber44. It is only sometimes, and apparently only in relation to a cultic context, that men are admitted to this female sphere45. On a “Campana” dinos by the

43 As set out in detail by L, Athenian Woman, 65-71.44 Pollux 3.37. Other domestic implements, too, played a role in wedding arrangements: according to a law of Solon, every Athenian bride was to take to her wedding a barley-roaster, a pan-like implement which would usually be hung up with the pots (Polyzelos fr. 6 KA). Neither pestle nor phrygetron ever seem to be represented in images of the wedding in Athens, but we find a holmos functioning as a stand for a loutrophoros-hydria in a scene of a male pre-nuptial bath (fig. 9): J. O and R.H. S, !e Wedding in Ancient Athens, Madison, 1993, 15, 56-58, figs. 10-13 (see also p. 35, on the lack of representation of pestles).45 But cf. also an Attic red-figure chous of mid-5th century BC date that shows a man with a pestle and a mule: Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe 1962.124 (B, “Mörsersymbolik”, 259, fig. 17; H. H, “!"#$% o#&'(% )%*+,-*%”, in: Antidoron. Festschrift für Jürgen !imme zum 65. Geburtstag am 26. September 1982, Karlsruhe, 1982, 61-73, 68, fig. 9 and discussion on p. 62 and 70 n. 53; F. L, “Orphée mis à mort”, Musica e Storia 2 (1994), 280-281, n. 53. %e women-only rule is broken also in comedy: on a Corinthian red-figure bell-krater two men in costume are distracted from pounding by curious geese: Athens, National Museum CC 1927 (inv. 5815); here, white dots along the rim of the holmos have been interpreted as grapes: Buchholz, “Mörsersymbolik”, 267

Ribbon Painter in Boston (fig. 6), produced around 530 BC in an Ionian environment46, a woman in a long dress and a nude man are shown jointly pounding with large pestles in a holmos, which is here a wide bowl on an elaborate stand of lotus-blossom shape, possibly formed by three flaring legs. %ey are joined by a procession of youths playing auloi, carrying a net basket, jugs and bowls and dancing; a cauldron on a tripod further adds to the festive spirit. Fairbanks had suggested that the couple at the holmos might be crushing grain for the heroic and cultic drink kykeon, perhaps as part of a festival for Demeter at Eleusis or elsewhere in the Ionian world47. Others have instead suspected that it might

with fig. 31. Note also the three pestles as a warrior’s shield device on an Attic black-figure amphora in the manner of the Princeton Painter – a male appropriation of the female weapon of the Trojan women?: Rome, Musei Capitolini 98; ABV 300.5; B, “Mörsersymbolik”, 261-262, fig. 19.46 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 13.205 (A. F, “An Ionian Deinos in Boston”, AJA 23 (1919), 279-287; A. F, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan Vases I, Boston, 1928, 191, no. 546, pl. 58.546). See now also J.M. H, “Four New Campana Dinoi, a New Painter, Old Questions”, BABesch 82 (2007), 365-421, esp. 367, 378, no. A1, 394-396, figs. 9-17; Hemelrijk argues for production in Ionia itself rather than by Ionian immigrants in the West.47 A. F, “An Ionian Deinos in Boston”, AJA 23 (1919), 279-280. Fairbanks’ interpretation is critically assessed and rejected, however, by A. D, Le Cycéon. Breuvage rituel des Mystères d’Eleusis, Paris, 1955, 56-59, pl. 1. On kykeon, see most recently M.L. W, “Grated cheese fit for heroes”, JHS 118 (1998), 190-191. Ritual rather than daily life has also been suggested for other scenes of women at the holmos e.g. by B, “Mörsersymbolik”; E. B, Der Schaukelmaler, Mainz, 1982, 51 (cult of Demeter); and N, “Kitchen”, 54-62. See also L, Athenian Woman, 67-71.

6. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 13.205. Black figure “Campana” dinos (photograph © 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

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be nuts or fruit that are to be pounded and perhaps carried in the net-basket48. %e presence of jugs in the hands of some of the youths (while at first glance perhaps suggesting a drinking party) would in fact be consistent with the production of coarse gruel for kykeon, which requires addition of a liquid as well as of herbs (carried in the net basket?), but also with the dehusking of grain, since, as Livingstone had observed and as is suggested also by ancient sources, a certain amount of water assists the dehusking49.

A ritual may also be alluded to by a related scene on a fragmentary Attic red-figure cup by Onesimos (fig. 7)50. On the inside of the cup, a woman bends over an open chest while a pestle and shallow basket (or a bowl or even mortarium?) are displayed behind her51. On the outside of the cup, on one side a wreathed young man, nude except for boots, with an erect phallus and a young draped woman are jointly pounding with pestles in a large basin set atop a fluted column; of the other side only small fragments are preserved but a similar scene seems to have been represented52. Such joint pounding by

48 Hemelrijk suggests olives or nuts: J.M. H, “Four New Campana Dinoi, a New Painter, Old Questions”, BABesch 82 (2007), 367.49 See e.g. Pliny, NH 18.73; see also Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs, 502-503. D.A. T, A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome, Leiden, , 34-35, on the process of “conditioning” grain by soaking it in water before pounding.50 New York, Dietrich von Bothmer collection (Para 360.93 quater ; L, Athenian Woman, 67; N, “Kitchen”, 60, n. 7). I am most grateful to Dyfri Williams for bringing this piece to my attention, to Dietrich von Bothmer for permission to publish it, and to Jasper Gaunt and %omas Mannack for making this possible.51 %e representation certainly does not show a “woman with pestle pounding corn”, as the Beazley Archive database (vase no. 275921, on 30/07/2007) suggests, nor a woman milling grain or kneading dough, as N, “Kitchen”, 60 n. 7, had thought. As already B, Para 360.93quater, correctly recognised, it is clearly a wooden chest (the wooden structure being indicated by added dilute lines) over which the woman bends; its lid is visible above her head.52 Preserved are parts of the drapery of a woman, wearing a chiton and, presumably, a himation (slung low around her hips?) to the left of a similar standed holmos; inside the holmos a small segment of a pestle is still visible. %e legs of a youth, one frontal one in profile view, are preserved to the right of the holmos.

7. New York, Coll. D. von Bothmer. Attic red-figure cup by Onesimos, c. 490-480 BC, depicting a man and a woman at a holmos (A, B) and a woman at a chest (I) (photograph D. von Bothmer)

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young girls and (excited) young men – seemingly taking place in the open air on account of the youth’s boots – can hardly belong in the realm of the actual daily life of young women53. %e male intrusion into the quintessentially female domestic sphere represents an inversion of the norms which may not seem out of place on a drinking cup, but the fact that it is not a satyr who transgresses the boundaries but a young man, a wreathed citizen, may suggest that there is more to this scene than a mere visual play with gender spheres. Indeed, the scene may allude to a ritual requiring the joint work of both men and women, and maybe also to the idea (suggested by Artemidoros, Oneir. 2.42) of the holmos being “female” and the pestle “male”.

One further vase-painting, finally, seems to belong into the same realm. An Attic red-figure cup fragment by the Brygos Painter (fig. ) shows a woman with a long pestle propped up behind her. She is leaning over a basin on a fluted stand (lines in diluted glaze on the basin possibly suggesting wood?) that is nearly identical to the basins on Onesimos’ cup, her arms lowered into it; her himation is slung low around her hips so as to free the upper body – a working woman, clearly54. Her sakkos seems to be

53 An alternative scenario of hetairai involving customers in a tantalising game of respectable domestic work seems even less likely.54 Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 652 (ARV2 377.103 (“washing clothes? – or preparing food, as Bothmer suggests?”); F. L, “Figures of Women”, in: P.

suspended in the field behind her. A woven basket (clearly characterised as such by wavy lines) is set on the ground next to the basin’s stand, and there seem to be rows of small added red dots trailing from the edge of the basin into the basket. One might be tempted at first glance to see them as berries that the woman had just lifted out of the basket into the basin; however, it is equally, if not more likely that this is grain which has just been pounded for dehusking and is now being scooped out into the basket to be moved to the next stage of its processing.

Even if no obvious cultic connotation is indicated in this latter representation, a ritual context such as a harvest festival, rather than a mere ordinary scene of daily life, seems likely. Indeed, looking at the scenes on the two cups together, one is struck by a possible correspondence with the passage in Clement Protr. II 21.2 that records the Eleusinian Mysteries’ synthema: “I fasted; I drank kykeon; I took from the chest [kiste], having worked I placed in the basket [kalathos], and from the basket [kalathos] in the chest [kiste].” Could what we see on the cups possibly be grain being taken out of a chest, worked with a pestle in a holmos, scooped into a basket, and from there into a chest? Burkert55 had already

S P (ed), A History of Women in the West, 1. From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints (series ed. G. D and M. P), Paris, 1992, 139-229, esp. 208-209, fig. 46 (washing or crushing grain); L, Athenian Woman, 76 (“work in water”). I am grateful to Dyfri Williams for bringing this cup to my attention, and for Irène Aghion and François Lissarrague for supplying a photograph. A parallel for the dress can be found e.g. on a pelike by the Pan Painter in Paris (Paris, Musée du Louvre G547; ARV2 555.89) which may represent women washing clothes, but the dress equally suits all other types of work; see, e.g. a woman apparently selling fruit or cakes out of a basket on a further pelike by the Pan Painter (Madrid, National Archaeological Museum L157; ARV2 554.86; the prevailing interpretation of washing clothes – see e.g. L, Athenian Woman, 93, fig. 3.3 – seems unlikely). On this type of “working dress”, see also L, Athenian Woman, 79.55 W. B, Greek Religion, Oxford, 1985, 286. He imagined a mortar and pestle being taken from and placed back in the kiste – an interpretation that would seem to fit the text less well, however, quite apart from the fact that no large holmos would easily fit into a chest, even if a pestle might. A small mortarium, too, would fit, of course, but there is no reason whatsoever to link mortaria with this action. One may note, incidentally, that the

8. Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 652: Attic red-figure cup by the Brygos Painter, c. 480 BC, depicting a woman at a holmos (photograph F. Lissarrague)

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suggested that the passage in Clement might refer to the sacred and secret pounding of grain, but there are also problems with such an interpretation. %e terms kiste and kalathos, for one, do not quite match the type of chest and basket on our cup; more importantly, perhaps, nudity and sexual allusions, as they appear on Onesimos’s cup as well as on the Boston dinos, might have been deemed inappropriate for the Mysteries56. And finally there is the question of whether it is conceivable that such a central rite of the Mysteries would have been referred to on vases at all. Perhaps we should thus not overstretch the possible link of the scenes with the central rites of the Mysteries; nevertheless, there is every reason to assume that in other rites for Demeter (or possibly even other gods) in the Attic and Ionian world the pounding of grain by young men and women did play a part. %at the grinding of grain could have been a part of rituals is suggested not least by a passage in Lysistrata, in which Aristophanes names being an aletris (corn grinder) among the cult activities of Athenian girls quite probably in the cult of Demeter, even if scholiasts hint at the use of special sacred molones, mills, rather than holmoi57. Still, also the pounding

passage seems to suggest that the kykeon was ready already before the pounding, thus effectively disconnecting the kykeon from the pounding. As has already been pointed out by Delatte, no sources connect the use of the holmos with the kykeon anyway, and it is more likely that it was made from more finely crushed or ground meal than could be provided by working with a hyperos and holmos: A. D, Le Cycéon. Breuvage rituel des Mystères d’Eleusis, Paris, 1955, 56-58.56 On types of chests see E. B, “Griechische Truhenbehälter”, JdI 100 (1985), 1-168, esp. 16-17, where it is pointed out that kistai could be containers for food (e.g. sacrificial cakes for Demeter) but generally would have been smaller, woven or bark containers. On nudity, sexuality and the Mysteries, see, for example, the extensive critical discussion of the passage in Clement by G. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries, Princeton, 1961, 287-305. A. D, Le Cycéon. Breuvage rituel des Mystères d’Eleusis, Paris, 1955, 56-59) suggests that the pounding might instead be part of a ritual producing pelanos, i.e. offerings of barley and wheat with wine or oiled poured over them, as they are known to have been offered at Eleusis and other festivals of Demeter (and Dionsysos).57 Ar., Lys. 643-644, with school.; Hesych., s.v. “aletrides”. See also J. N, “Looking for the Image: Representations of girls’ rituals in ancient Athens”, in: M. P and A. T (ed), Finding Persephone: Women’s Rituals

of grain could be of wider significance58, as is hinted at by the representation of two pounding women on the Kypselos chest (described by Pausanias 5.18.2), each one with her individual holmos. %is puzzling representation has often been taken by scholars to show Moirai as working fortune and misfortune through their never-ending movement of the pestle, a cosmologically significant movement equivalent to the spinning of the thread of life59.

%at our vase representations indeed refer to some ritual is, finally, further supported also by the very type of holmos they depict. On both of the early-5th-century cups, the basins on elaborate fluted supports not only stand out from among other representations of holmoi but are, in fact, closely reminiscent of stone basins regularly found in sanctuaries and commonly identified as perirrhanteria or louteria60. %ese usually tend to be shallower, but there are also deeper versions, and the question must be raised if at least some of these deeper ones might not have served as holmoi. In a reverse scenario, a holmos might on occasion have functioned as a water basin, or at least as a stand for a loutrophoros, as a scene on a hydria of c. 470 BC suggests (fig. 9)61. Even for some of the shallow basins a connection with food processing cannot be entirely excluded. A fairly shallow basin on an elaborate stand clearly functions as a holmos on the Boston dinos (fig. 6), while terracotta figurines and representations on vases show women kneading in trays on high columnar supports62. Standed

in the Ancient Mediterranean, Bloomington, 2007, 55-78, esp. 59-64.58 B, “Mörsersymbolik” discusses in detail the symbolic and magical meaning of grinding/pounding bowls, even though only few of his examples actually refer to thyeiai or holmoi but rather to milling and millstones.59 Hence also the proverb hyperou peristrophe (Plutarch 2.1072b); see B 1976/7, 259, 267-270, with earlier references; see also above, n 38.60 See most recently H. P, Perirrhanteria und Louteria. Entwicklung und Verwendung großer Marmor- und Kalksteinbecken auf figürlichem und säulenartigem Untersatz in Griechenland, Berlin, 1997. 61 Warsaw, National Museum 142290 (J. O and R.H. S, !e Wedding in Ancient Athens, Madison, 1993, 15, 56-58, figs. 10-13; see also above n. 44).62 P, “Vita quotidiana”, 10-13; S, “Greek Kitchen”, 126, 135; S, “Addenda”, 162; the lamp sometimes resting on the side of the basin may suggest night-time activity / rituals. Of particular interest is a

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late 5th century BC Attic black-figure stand of unknown provenance which shows a draped woman working at a shallow standed basin (kneading dough?) amidst a group of nude men, who are carrying food (?) and fanning a fire – an intriguing parallel to the nude man & draped female couple on the cup by Onesimos; interestingly, many examples of this group of stands come from Eleusis (Toledo, Museum of Art 1958.69B; Para 168; CVA Toledo 1, pl. 16). See also D, Délos 18, 48-53. For women working at shallow standed basins on vases, see L,

terracotta basins found in houses63, especially, may have functioned as such kardopoi64, kneading basins for the production of bread and cakes. But also stone basins might have been kardopoi, and Cahill points out that a number of basins at Olynthos that would normally be identified as louteria were found associated with grinding equipment65. Kardopoi could be present also in sanctuaries, such as in the sanctuary of Cynthian Zeus on Delos, where a kardopos lithine is attested in 156/5 BC66. Shallow basins may also have been used for grinding, with a grinding stone (saddle quern) placed inside, as is suggested by several terracotta figurines, including one in London (fig. 10)67. One may even wonder whether the rough surface of some of the basins (achieved by the picking of the surface in stone basins or the addition of added grit in terracotta

Athenian Woman, 75-79; see also N, “Kitchen”, 61, n. 13 (“possibly kneading dough”). 63 H. P, Perirrhanteria und Louteria. Entwicklung und Verwendung großer Marmor- und Kalksteinbecken auf figürlichem und säulenartigem Untersatz in Griechenland, Berlin, 1997, 135-136; D, Délos 18, 48-53.64 On kardopoi and maktrai, see A, “Attic Stelai”, 239-241; S, “Greek Kitchen”, 126-127; P, “Vita quotidiana”, 10-13. On the difficulty of distinguishing kardopoi and maktrai on high stands from perirrhanteria and louteria, see also M. K, Perirrhanterien und Becken. Alt-Ägina 2.4, Mainz, 1996. According to the “Attic Stelai”, kardopoi and related maktrai could be made of pottery, stone or wood.65 C, Olynthus, 167-168.66 D, Délos 18, 103.67 London, British Museum GR 1856.9-2.63 (Terracotta 234): P, “Vita quotidiana”, 11, no. 18; S, “Greek Kitchen”, 134, no. 28; see also S, “Addenda”, 162.

9. Warsaw, National Museum 142290; Attic red-figure hydria by the Leningrad Painter, c. 470 BC (drawing after A. RUMPF, Die Religion der Griechen, Leipzig, 1928, fig. 173)

10. London, British Museum GR 1856.9-2.63 (Terracotta 234): Terracotta figurine of a woman grinding inside a standed bowl (photograph courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum)

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basins, very similar to the practice common for many Classical Greek mortaria) might not have enabled grinding directly on the surface of the basin – an explanation that seems at least as likely as the usually suspected effect of ‘enlivening’ the surface of water in the bowl, or of providing a “sense of cleanliness”68. %e situation regarding holmoi in sanctuaries is thus complex. %e vase representations certainly point to the possibility of a ritual use of holmoi. %is is tentatively, if ambiguously, supported also by epigraphic evidence. %e “thragana diploa” mentioned in the 386-380BC inventory of the Heraion of %espiai, for example, have been interpreted as mortar and pestle, even though this interpretation seems debatable69. A sacred law of the Delphic Amphiktiony of 380/79 BC70 that prohibits the presence of both holmoi and mills in the sacred precinct of Apollo (as they are instruments intended to exploit the fruits of the sacred earth and thus to desecrate it?)71 indirectly suggests that elsewhere these instruments were deemed suitable. All the

68 See, e.g., Agora 12, 220; M. I, “Bacini corinzi su alto piede”, ASAtene 58 (1985), 7-61, esp. 16; M. K, Perrirrhanterien und Becken. Alt-Ägina 2.4, Mainz, 1996, 93. Agora 12 cite an example in which the floor of the bowl is worn, but this seems to be an exception.69 SEG 24, 361. %is interpretation was first suggested by J. T and P. R, “L’inventaire sacré de %espies. L’alphabet attique en Béotie”, RevPhil 60 (1966), 70-87, esp. 75-76, and is repeated by P. S-P, La cité au banquet. Histoire des repas publics dans les cités grecques, Rome, 1992, 306. We cannot be sure, however, whether the expression is indeed equivalent to holmos and hyperon, rather than perhaps to some other instrument related to “crushing”.70 IG II2 1126; SEG 28, 100; CID I, no. 10; CID IV, no. 1. Kirchner had read holmon also on a Hellenistic inscription from Rhamnous (IG II2 1322) but the alternative reading of bomon proposed by Leonandros is now accepted as standard (B. P, Ὁ δῆμος τοῦ ῾Ραμνοῦντες ΙΙ. Οἱ ἐπιγραφές, Athens, 1999, 133-134, no. 167). S.T. S, !esCRA 5 (2005), 338 (s.v. “Gefässe und Geräte im Kultmahl: Gefässe und Geräte für die Zubereitung von Speisen: Mörser und Stössel”) in addition refers to a holmos mentioned in a Tenean 3rd

century BC inscription (IG XII.5, 872 line 82) which is, however, a register of sales of land, houses, farm-stock and furniture similar to the “Attic stelai” rather than a temple inventory.71 As suggested by R in CID I, 111.

more puzzling is therefore the tradition72 that equates Apollo’s Delphic tripods with holmoi and imagines Apollo or the Pythia seated upon them; according to Plutarch, Prov. 2.14, the proverbial expression en holmo koimasthai derives from this. A nearly identical idea in contemporary Rabbinic literature is the Rabbinic expression “sat upon the mortarium [medokha]” (Jerusalem Talmud Yebamot 3a). It is said to go back to the story of the prophet Haggai being seated on a mortar while pondering three questions. As has been suggested by Reich73, the expression may well contain a reference to the type of low, three-legged stone mortarium that was common across the Bronze and Iron Age Near East (and the Bronze Age Aegean)74, and that is here conflated with the three-legged tripod of the Pythia pronouncing her oracle – the seat that is hers or Apollo’s in most Greek sources75.

72 Zenob. III.63, supposedly following Sophokles (fr. 942) who called Apollo “enolmos” i.e. seated on a holmos; see also Eustath. Il. 11.14; Schol. Ar. Plut. 9.; schol. Ar. Vesp. 201, 238. %e sources are discussed by K. S, “Der Dreifuss. Ein formen- und religionsgeschichtlicher Versuch”, JdI 36 (1921), 98-185, esp. 150-151.73 Ronny R, “‘Sat upon the Mortar’ (JT Yebamot 3a)”, lecture delivered at the conference Greek Art and Culture: Origins and Influence at the University of Haifa, 20-21 May 2007. I am most grateful to Professor Reich for drawing my attention to this passage and for useful discussions on the subject.74 See e.g. H.-G. B, “Steinerne Dreifussschalen des ägäischen Kulturkreises und ihre Beziehungen zum Osten”, JdI 78 (1963), 1-77; B, “Mörsersymbolik”. %e term medokha seems to refer to this type of vessel. %e two Hebrew terms commonly translated as ‘mortar’ are medokha and maktesh. In Num 11.8 manna is being pounded [“dakh”] in a medokha before being boiled. Proverb 27.22 states “Crush [‘katash’] a fool in a mortar [‘maktesh’] with a pestle [‘`eliy’] along with crushed grain [‘riyphah’], yet his folly will not depart from him”. From this and Talmudic texts (e.g. Tosephta Shabbath 14, 16, where salt is crushed in a medokha with a wooden pestle like spices), it seems that the medokha was more akin to the thyeia / mortarium, while the maktesh might have resembled more the Greek holmos / mortar. I am grateful to Ronny Reich for his suggestions on this topic; see also G. D, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina III. Von der Ernte zum Mehl, Hildesheim, 1964, 213-215, 218-219.75 On the tripod and its central role as facilitator of oracles and insight in general since the 5th century BC, see most recently A. S, Darstellungen von Dreifußkesseln in der griechischen Kunst bis zum Beginn der Klassischen Zeit, Frankfurt, 1997, esp. 25 (n. 149 on Apollo enolmos).

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How can this conflation between holmos, mortarium and oracular tripod be explained? One might remember in this context that the ordinary Greek mortarium may on occasion have been placed on a tall triple-legged stand. Such an arrangement is represented on a painting in the 4th century BC Etruscan Tomba Golini in Orvieto76, but was surely an exception, as other Greek representations show the flat mortarium bowl placed directly on the ground. But also the holmos could be three-legged. Of course it is true that the stand of the Greek holmos, in both images and actual examples from the 6th century BC onwards, is usually of a sturdy conical shape and not a tripod. However, the holmos stand on the Campana dinos (fig. 6), with its flaring shape, looks as if it could be composed of three tapering legs77. One might also speculate about some early perirrhanteria or louteria on tripod-bases in fact being holmoi. Other basins used for food-processing, such as that used for grinding in fig. 10, certainly could on occasion be three-legged78. And there is one further possible link between the holmos and tripod: Hesiod’s description of a “tripoden” holmos might well have been understood by some79 to refer to a “tripod holmos” rather than the probably originally intended ‘three-foot-high holmos’. %e idea of being “seated on a mortar” (and pondering a question) is thus not only an extraordinary example of an idea crossing cultures and of the fluidity of the application and understanding of terms in antiquity, but it may also be a further hint that elaborate holmoi on occasion had a place alongside the ubiquitous tripods in Greek sanctuaries – themselves, after all, in origin kitchen equipment.

76 A good illustration can be found in M. P, Etruscan Painting, Geneva, 1952, 98.77 As suggested e.g. by A, “Attic Stelai”, 236: “a three-legged stand”.78 For further examples see P, “Vita quotidiana”, 11, nos. 12-17.79 It was certainly understood in this sense by some modern scholars: see e.g. Blümner’s correction of Beckmann: H. B, Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Künste bei Griechen und Römern I, Leipzig, 19122, 15, n. 2.

F : ()

To conclude: as almost universally used and useful implements, large wooden or stone mortars (holmoi) and smaller pottery or stone mortaria (thyeiai), with related though clearly distinct functions, were used in ancient cultures throughout millennia. We have seen that in Archaic and Classical Greece mortars and mortaria inhabited the private, female domestic sphere of food processing, a sphere only rarely visible to the outsider unless it crossed over into the more public realm of the sanctuary – as was indeed the case for both mortars and mortaria.

%e smaller and more portable mortaria were used primarily for the crushing and mixing of foodstuffs in households and sanctuaries directly for individual meals. %eir plentiful appearance in the archaeological record provides evidence for lively connections between East Greece and its eastern neighbours. Specialisation by different pottery production centres, sometimes for large export markets, can be observed already from the Archaic period. %e earliest type of pottery mortarium, a distinctive conical flat-based mortarium produced especially on Cyprus – characterises a koine encompassing most of the Eastern Mediterranean and to some degree the Phoenico-Punic area and the Black Sea region – a koine that, perhaps surprisingly, excluded mainland Greece, at least at first. After a period, Corinth and other production centres, too, entered the market with their own distinctive mortaria shapes and with innovations such as the sharp gritting of the inside of the bowl. Stone mortaria, by contrast, even though they had been used in the Bronze Age mostly in the shape of tripod bowls, became common again only from the later Classical period. Quite possibly these developments need to be seen alongside developments in food customs and cuisine, conditioned at least partly through cultural exchange, resulting in demand for specific performance of implements, an increasing diversification of specialised shapes and widespread trade activity. Use in cultic contexts – primarily for the preparation of sacred meals and medicinal mixtures – is amply attested.

By contrast, the development of the Greek holmos, presumably originally made from a hollowed-out tree trunk and continuing to be made predominantly from wood, is far harder to chart. From a number of vase-paintings we know that in the 6th century

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BC its normal shape was biconical, while more elaborate versions on fluted stands (made from wood but perhaps also stone) reminiscent of louteria may have stood in some Late Archaic sanctuaries, as may have, just perhaps, earlier versions on three legs. An instrument of fundamental significance for the ancient Greek household, used primarily for de-husking grain, but possibly also for coarse crushing of grain and other ingredients, the holmos with its hyperon acquired an emblematic function, symbolizing female domestic virtue, but possibly also the wealth and fertility of the household and the community. A fertility link may also be evident in certain rites, perhaps connected with harvest or first fruits festivals such as those for Demeter, in which two women or, exceptionally, men and women worked together at the holmos. By contrast, no similar symbolic function for pottery mortaria, used primarily for the grinding of herbs, spices and other substances into liquid mixtures could be established80. Mortaria do not feature in vase painting, but we find the activity of grinding in a mortarium ridiculed in Classical Corinthian terracotta imagery showing monkeys taking the place of women (or perhaps even of male chefs, the butt of jokes in Classical comedy?). %e difference in treatment and in interest most likely lies in the difference in function of the two vessels, one associated with the processing of essential grain, the other with luxury sauces, garlic cheese and the like. Related in some ways, mortars and mortaria were also worlds apart; both, however, prove too well warrant close scrutiny.

80 Whether the Late Archaic Boeotian terracotta figurines from tombs may be indicative of a special social or ritual function of mortaria remains unclear; see also P, “Vita quotidiana”, 3-4.

A

A, “Attic Stelai” = D. A. A, “%e Attic Stelai, Part III: Vases and Other Containers”, Hesperia 27 (1958), 163-310.

B, “Mörsersymbolik” = H.G. B, “Mörsersymbolik”, Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 7/8 (1976/7), 249-270.

C, Olynthus = N. C, Household and City Organization at Olynthus, New Haven, 2002.

D, Délos 18 = W. D, Délos 18. Le mobilier de Délos, Paris, 1938.

L, Athenian Woman = S. L, !e Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook, London, 2002.

M, Grain-mills = L.A. M, Grain-mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity, Oxford, 1958.

N, “Kitchen” = J. N, “Kitchen or Cult? Women with Mortars and Pestles”, in: S. K and S. M (ed), Greek Art in View. Essays in Honour of Brian Sparkes, Oxford, 2004, 54-62.

P, “Vita quotidiana” = M. P, “Vita quotidiana nel mondo greco tra il VI e il V secolo a.C. Un contributo per la classificazione delle rappresentazioni fittili”, Bolletino d’Arte 123 (2003), 3-24.

S, “Greek Kitchen” = B. S, “%e Greek Kitchen”, JHS 82 (1962), 121-137.

S, “Addenda” = B. S, “%e Greek Kitchen: Addenda”, JHS 85 (1965), 162-163.

V, “Bowls” = A. V, “‘Drab Bowls’ for Apollo: %e Mortaria of Naukratis and Exchange in the Archaic Eastern Mediterranean”, in: A V and U. S (ed), Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt. Studies on East Greek pottery and exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean, London, 2006, 31-46.

V and P, “Mortaria” = A. V and E. G. P, “Mortaria from Ancient Corinth : Form und Function”, Hesperia, forthcoming.

A

9

ABL = E. H, Attic Black-Figured Lekythoi, Paris, 1936

ABV = J.D. B, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1956

Add2 = T.H. C et al., Beazley Addenda2, Oxford, 1989

Agora 12 = B.A. S et L. T, Black and Plain Pottery of the 4th, 5th, and 6th, Centuries B.C., Princeton, 1997 [!e Athenian Agora 12]

Agora 21 = M. L, Graffiti and Dipinti, Princeton, 1976 [!e Athenian Agora 21].

Agora 23 = M.B. M, Mary S. P P, Attic Black-Figured Pottery, Princeton, 1986 [!e Athenian Agora 23]

Agora 29 = S.R, Hellenistic Pottery : Athenian and Imported Wheelmade Table Ware and Related Material, Princeton 1997 [!e Athenian Agora 29]

Agora 30 = M.B. M, Attic Red-Figured and White-Ground Pottery, Princeton, 1997 [!e Athenian Agora 30]

Amasis Papers = Papers on the Amasis Painter and his World, 3e J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1987

Amasis Painter = D. B, !e Amasis Painter and his World, Malibu and New York, 1985

APP = J. H. O, W. D. E. C, O. P (ed.), Athenian Potters and Painters, !e Conference Proceedings, Oxford, 1997 [Oxbow Monograph 67]

ARV2 = J.D. B, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters2, Oxford, 1963.

AWL = D. C. K, Athenian White Lekythoi, Patterns and Painters, Oxford, 1975

Barch = Beazley Archive Database, online resource : http: /www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/BeazleyAdmin/Script2/Pottery.htm

FAS = H. B, Formen attischer Schalen, Bern, 1940

G 1970 = H. G, Gefäßdarstellungen auf griechischen Vasen, Berlin, 1970

G, L = B. G, E. L, Die antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen I-IV, Berlin, 1914-1933

K 1998 = B. K, Die attisch schwarzfigurige Keramik aus dem Heraion von Samos, Bonn, 1998 [Samos 22]

Kunst der Schale = K. V, B. K (ed.), Kunst der Schale – Kultur des Trinkens. Ausstellungskatalog Antikensammlungen München, München, 1990

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Para = J. D. B, Paralipomena, Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters2, Oxford, 1971

P NC = H. P, Necrocorinthia : a Study of Corinthian Art in the Archaic Period, Oxford, 1931

Periplous = G. R. T, A. J. N. W. P, A. M. S (ed.), Periplous. Papers on Classical Art and Archaeology presented to Sir John Boardman, London, 2000

T, Nikosthenes = V. T, !e Black-figure Pottery signed Nikosthenes epoiesen, Amsterdam, 1999 [Allard Pierson Series 11]

5

C!"#$"#%

F 7Athena Tsingarida

A 9

I"#&!'()#*!" 11Francine Blondé

I. P&!'()#*!": W!&+%,!-% ."' P!##$&% 15

-e exaleiptron in Attica and Boeotia: Early black figure workshops reconsidered 17Bettina Kreuzer

Die Botkin-Klasse 31Heide Mommsen

Les ateliers de potiers : le témoignage des doubleens amphorae 47Cécile Jubier-Galinier

Attic red-figured Type D pyxides 59John H. Oakley

II. C!"#.*"$&%, C.-.)*#*$% ."' U%$% 77

Maße, Form und Funktion. Die attisch-schwarzfigurigen Halsamphoren 79Martin Bentz

Some Practical Aspects of Attic Black-figured Olpai and Oinochoai 89Andrew J. Clark

Kleine Trinkschalen für Mellepheben? 111Elke Böhr

Calculating vessel capacities : A new web-based solution 129Laurent Engels, Laurent Bavay & Athena Tsingarida

III. S,.-$% ."' U%$% 135

Les pithoi à reliefs de l'atelier d'Aphrati. Fonction et statut d'une production orientalisante 137-omas Brisart

Sacrificial and profane use of Greek hydriai 153Elisabeth Trinkl

Suction dippers: many shapes, many names and a few tricks 173Eurydice Kefalidou

Vases for heroes and gods : early red-figure parade cups and large-scaled phialai 185Athena Tsingarida

An unpublished dimidiating animal-head cup in the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels 203Susanna Sarti

6

IV. I/.0$% ."' S,.-$%: I)!"!0&.-,1 ."'U%$% 213

Un Dionysos pour les morts à Athènes à la fin de l'archaïsme :à propos des lécythes attiques à figures noires trouvés à Athènes en contexte funéraire 215

Marie-Christine Villanueva-PuigBlack-figure albastra by the Diosphos and Emporion Painters : specific subjects for specific uses? 225

Eleni HatzivassiliouVases grecs : à vos marques 237

François Lissarrague

V. S,.-$% *" C!"#$2#% 251

A propos d’une coupe de Sellada : les coupes de prestige archaïques attiques reconsidérées -Quelques réflexions concernant leur usage 253

Nassi MalagardisMarker vase or burnt offering? -e clay loutrophoros in context 291

Victoria SabetaiParfumer les morts. Usages et contenu des balsamaires hellénistiques en contexte funéraire 307

Natacha Massar-e daily grind of ancient Greece: mortars and mortaria between symbol and reality 319

Alexandra Villing

VI. T,$ G&$$+ V.%$ ."' *#% P(&),.%$&% 335

Les amateurs des scènes érotiques de l'archaïsme récent 337Juliette de La Genière

Greek shapes among the Lydians: retentions, divergences and developments 347Stravos A. Paspalas

Le vase grec entre statut et fonction : le cas de la péninsule Ibérique 365Pierre Rouillard

C!")3(%*!"% 377François Villard

A A 381

The Daily Grind of Ancient Greece: Mortars and Mortaria between Symbol and Reality (2009)

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