Nancy Hirschland Ramage Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol
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A Merrythought Cup from Sardis Author(s): Nancy Hirschland Ramage Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 453-460 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504103 Accessed: 09/10/2008 11:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aia. 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Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org A MerrythoughtCup from Sardis* NANCY HIRSCHLAND RAMAGE (Pls. 63-65) To George M.A. Hanfmann Abstract world, including Olympia, Delphi, Rhodes and After a review of the characteristicsof the merry- Athens.1In the Persian destructionlevel of the Athe- thought cup-a rare shape in Attic pottery-a list of all nian acropolis many examples, which had belonged known examples is presented.Then, a merrythoughtcup to votive were to Boardmanhas which was discoveredon the of Sardis in 1960 cups, brought light. akropolis that the Attic who translated the is fully describedfor the first time. On one side it shows suggested potter warriorsengaged in battle, and on the other, the Calydo- metal prototype into terracottamight have been the nian boar hunt. Painter of Athens 533 or Ergotimos,2both of whom Peculiaritiesof the asymmetricalcomposition of Side fashioned a footless cup with merrythought handles.3 A, the battle scene, are analyzed and a hypothesisis sug- If Boardman is correct, then the more typical merry- gested: that the painter improvised so as to include a with a tall stem was the second in the scene with an unusual helmet with horns and ears pro- thought cup step jecting from it. A series of errorsand miscalculationssug- development. gests the last-minutechange of composition. This type of cup is unusual in Greek pottery, and The work of the Painter of the Sardis Merrythought even during the twenty years or so when it was made Cup grows out of the tradition of the C Painter and the in Attic black-figure workshops-from the 560s to the Painter of Acropolis 606, and is near that of the Painter 540s B.C.4-potters chose this In of the Boston Polyphemos.This piece is a notable addi- shape only rarely. tion to the corpusof high quality cups of the middleof the fact, the examples known to me in the black-figure 6th century B.C. technique number only in the thirties. As can be seen from the Table5 which follows (p. 454), the type was The merrythought cup, whose name is derived found in Athens itself, in other parts of Greece, and from the British term for "wishbone," is a shape dis- was exported to both Etruria and the east. tinguished especially by two wishbone handles with a It is not clear why so few examples of black-figure knob on each; other characteristics are a rounded merrythought cups have come down to us, nor why hemispherical bowl and a tall stem with wide flaring the period when they were made was so short; it is foot. The shape depends upon a metallic prototype, to intriguing to note, on the other hand, that the shape judge by the thin wall of the bowl and in particular by may have held some kind of antiquarian interest the knobs on the handles. Bronze wishbone handles which inspired a few red-figure potters to imitate it a have been discovered at several sites in the Greek century later. * I should like to thank the following scholars for their help at 1964) 46 and pl. 1:a. 2 various stages in the preparationof this article: G. Bakir, D. von J. Boardman,Athenian Black Figure Vases (New York 1974) Bothmer, K.P. Erhart, C.H. Greenewalt, jr., D.G. Mitten, A. 32. Ramage, B.S. Ridgway and M. Torelli. The work was made possi- 3 ABV 68.1 and 79; nos. 4 and 5 in my Table infra. ble through the assistance of a research grant from the National 4 F. Villard accepts 565-545 B.C. as the period for the merry- Endowmentfor the Humanities. thought cup: "L'evolution des coupes attiques a figures noires 1 Olympia: A. Furtwangler, Olympia 4 (1890) 147-48, pl. 55, (580-480)," REA 48 (1946) 161-62, 180. Also A. De Agostino, no. 926 and especiallyno. 912; Delphi: P. Perdrizet,FdD 5 (1908) "Tazze con anse a bottone della Collezione Vagnonville,"StEtr 13 75, no. 314, fig. 254; Rhodes: Biliotti excavations, mentioned by (1939) 502. Cf. also P. Mingazzini, Vasi della Collezione Castel- Furtwangler, loc. cit.; Athens: A.D. Keramopoullos, Deltion 1 lani I (Rome 1930) 333-36; Development23; B.A. Sparkesand L. (1915) 20-22 (of 7rapadpr-ja),figs. 1-7, and A.H.P. de Ridder, Talcott, The AthenianAgora 12. Black and Plain Potteryof the 6th, Cataloguedes bronzestrouves sur l'acropoled'Athenes (Paris 1896) 5th and 4th CenturiesB.C. (Princeton 1970) 56, n. 3. 5 51, no. 152. Ultimately the wishbone handles are descendedfrom I thank D. von Bothmerfor checkingmy Table, and for draw- sources in the Aegean of the Middle and Late Bronze Age: H.W. ing my attentionto nos. 12 and 23-26. Catling, Cypriot Bronzework in the Mycenaean World (Oxford 453 454 NANCY HIRSCHLAND RAMAGE [AJA 87 TABLE 1. Rhodes, from Ialysos ABV 57.113. C Painter 2. Wiirzburg 451, from Corinth ABV 57.114. C Painter 3. Athens Akr. 2144, from Athens ABV 57.115. C Painter (probably a merrythought) 4. Athens 14907, from Thebes ABV 68.1. Painter of Athens 533 (footless cup with merrythought handles) 5. Berlin 3151, from Aegina ABV 79. Ergotimos (footless cup with merrythought handles) 6. Athens Akr. (b 140), from Athens ABV 80. Similar cup fragment (perhaps merrythought) 7. Kerameikos Mus., from Athens ABV 113.81. Lydos (perhaps merrythought) 8. Athens Akr. 1492, from Athens ABV 113.82. Lydos (perhaps merrythought) 9. Athens Akr., from Athens ABV 115.8. Manner of Lydos (merrythought or the like) 10. Rhodes, from Ialysos ABV 198.1. Marmaro Painter 11. Athens Akr. 1481, from Athens ABV 198.2. Marmaro Painter (merrythought, proto-A, or the like) 12. Laon 37.986 CVA Laon, pl. 19, 1-3. Marmaro Painter 13. Boston 99.518 ABV 198. Painter of the Boston Polyphemos 14. Munich 2016, from Vulci ABV 199. "Recalls the Painter of the Boston Polyphemos" (Beazley) 15. Manisa 2137, from Sardis "In the neighborhood of the Painter of the Boston Polyphemos" (Von Bothmer). Now the Painter of the Sardis Merrythought Cup 16. Villa Giulia 50586, from Cerveteri Paralipomena 71; P. Mingazzini, Vasi della Collezione Castellani I (Rome 1930) no. 614 17. Villa Giulia, from Cerveteri Mingazzini, Castellani I no. 615 18. Berlin 1672, from Kameiros JdI 46 (1931) 49, fig. 3 19. Berlin 3972 K.A. Neugebauer, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Fiihrer durch das Antiquarium. II. Vasen (Berlin 1932) 64 20. Vatican, from Vulci C. Albizzati, Vasi antichi dipinti del Vaticano (Rome n.d.) no. 369, 153-54, figs. 93-94 21. Leiden, from Vulci CVA Leiden 2, pls. 57-58 22. Chios, Emporio 687 J. Boardman, Excavations in Chios 1952-1955. Greek Emporio (BSA Supp. 6, London 1967) 155 23. Greifswald 270 A. Hundt and K. Peters, Greifswalder Antiken (Berlin 1961) pl. 21 (perhaps a Siana cup) 24. Bucharest, from Histria Inv. V 8933 and inv. V 8458 25. Cup, now lost G. Micali, Monumenti per servire alla storia degli antichi popoli italiani (Florence 1832) pl. 100,2 26. Cup Private Collection, Basel 27. Florence, from Chiusi A. De Agostino, StEtr 13 (1939), Vagnonville Coll., no. 37, pl. 46 28. Florence, from Chiusi A. De Agostino, StEtr 13 (1939), Vagnonville Coll., no. 38, pl. 47 29. Florence, from Chiusi A. De Agostino, StEtr 13 (1939), Vagnonville Coll., no. 39, pl. 48 30. Florence, from Chiusi A. De Agostino, StEtr 13 (1939), Vagnonville Coll., no. 40, pl. 49 31. Florence, from Chiusi A. De Agostino, StEtr 13 (1939), Vagnonville Coll., no. 41, pl. 50 About a century after the black-figure series of merrythought cups, the shape was revived by the Sotades Painter, who made two known examples in white-ground; others in his workshop followed him in red-figure: 32. London D 6, from Athens (WG) ARV2 763.1; Sotades Painter 33. London D 5, from Athens (WG) ARV2 763.2; Sotades Painter 34. Brussels A 890, from Athens (RF) ARV2 771.1; Akin to Sotades Painter 35. Brussels A 891, from Athens (RF) ARV2 771.2; Akin to Sotades Painter 36. Leipzig T 954, from Greece (RF) ARV2 771.3; Akin to Sotades Painter 37.