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How the Aryballos was suspended1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

If we look at the aryballos represented in the field of our vase (Pl. III), we ask ourselves what the tags are which we see hanging on the shoulder. This question involves another, how the aryballos was carried. I shall try to answer both questions.

The old, Corinthian type of aryballos was suspended by its big, solid handle, through which a cord or string was passed.

The Attic type, on the other hand, was carried by a cord tied round the neck of the vase. That is the rule, even when there are handles. Such handles are narrow and consequently fragile; and there was no reason to reject a perfectly satisfactory method of suspension because of a change in detail.

I. The simplest way is as follows. Make a loop in a cord, knotting the cord at a (Fig. 1, 1). See that the loose ends are of the same length. Then pass the ends round the neck of the vase, and make another knot on the other side at b (Fig. 1, 2). Two ends thus hang down from the neck, on the side opposite to the loop by which the vase is carried. Seen in profile : Fig. 1, 3. As soon as you carry the vase, it naturally tips up (Fig. 1, 4) (just as the Corinthian type did which was carried by the handle).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1928

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References

page 216 note 2 See, for example, the Amasis vase, Pottier, , Vases du Louvre, Pl. 17–18, A 479Google Scholar; or the Exekias amphora, F.R., Pl. 132. In the exceptional cases where the Corinthian aryballos had two handles, and was carried by both, it hangs level. See, for instance, the Leyden Antimenes hydria (J.H.S. xlvii. Pl. 11 : above, p. 196Google Scholar); the hydria London B333 (Sudhoff, , Badewesen i. p. 66Google Scholar, Fig. 53); and perhaps the New York stele (Fig. 6, p. 203), but I cannot be certain from the photograph.

page 216 note 3 Hartwig, Pl. 25.

page 217 note 1 Carried in the hand:—Brygos kotyle in Boston, , A.J.A. 1915, p. 130Google Scholar = Beazley, , V.A. p. 90Google Scholar, Fig. 58; Peithinos cup in Berlin, Hartwig, Pl. 25 = Pfuhl, Malerei, Fig. 417. Carried round the wrist:—Kleophrades vase in Boston, , J.H.S. xxxvi. p. 131Google Scholar = Beazley, ,V.A. p. 42, Fig. 24.Google Scholar

page 219 note 1 F.R. Pl. 151.

page 219 note 2 Just in the same way, on the bilingual amphora by the Andocides painter in Boston (Forman Catalogue, no. 305 = Pfuhl, Malerei, Figs. 266 and 316), the b.f. bull has his tail plaited, while the r.f. bull has his twisted.

page 219 note 3 Peithinos makes a slip in counting here, gives seven, but this is a common and venial error. See the Amasis amphora in Munich, F.R. text iii. p. 224, where three strings are given, whereas the Amasis vase in the Louvre, Pottier, , Vases du Louvre, Pl. 18, A 479Google Scholar, shews four strings.

page 219 note 4 Good examples are Fig. 3, γ and δ, from the Berlin Peithinos cup.

page 219 note 5 Fig. 3, δ, from the Peithinos cup, shews the carrying-band as it really is, a broad leather band like all the others, whereas the drawing in Hartwig, Pl. 25 (and the vase itself at first sight, because of the repainting along the break) gives the impression of a single cord carried in the hand.

page 221 note 1 The safest way is first to make a knot on the long cords and then to make another knot with the short and the long, otherwise the fastening works loose.

page 221 note 2 F.R. Pl. 135.

page 221 note 3 Pl. IV a.

page 221 note 4 For the position of the slits see, in Method II, the explanation of the points measured off on the short cord.

page 223 note 1 F.R. iii. p. 19.

page 223 note 2 F.R. Pl. 157.

page 223 note 3 Reichhold's drawing is misleading. My drawing shews the break which prevents us from seeing how the aryballos was fastened to the carrying-band.

page 223 note 4 The drawing in F.R. iii. p. 87, after Monumenti, gives none of these details.

page 223 note 5 J.H.S. xxxvi. p. 131Google Scholar.