“Vases found on a specific site can tell us about the history and the social reality of a place”.1

THE KERAMEIKOS2

1The streets on both sides of the river Eridanos are a distinctive feature of the Kerameikos excavation site. The Sacred Street, connecting Athens and Eleusis, as well as the Kerameikos street leading from the Agora to the Academy, both played an important role in Athenian cult rituals: they were used for processions that the Athenians performed regularly and as the setting for ritual contests.3 In this presentation, I will concentrate on one case of potters production related to these activities.

Potters in the Kerameikos

2Part of the Kerameikos area belonged to the Demos Kerameis or Kerameon, the potter’s district of Athens, during the Classical period. Since the beginning of the excavations, it was a scope to investigate the potter’s production on the site. But until today, an overview over the kinds of pottery produced here is missing.

3The potters established their workshops in the area between the rivers Eridanos and Kephissos because of the benevolent conditions provided by the abundance of water, the natural deposits of clay here and maybe also because their kilns were best situated outside the inhabited area of the ἄστυ to avoid the risk of fire. In addition, a major advantage for their business was the position of their workshops along the main trade routes leading to the Peloponnesus and towards the harbours of Athens.

4The production of pottery on a site is best declared by potter’s kilns and workshops, but on the other hand, various artefacts, such as production tools or production waste also indicate workshop activities. Around the kilns and workshops, usually a lot of this kind of pottery is found. The first potter’s workshop we know of in the Kerameikos area was a large site along the south western border of the Academy street, today immediately north of the Aghia Triada church.4 Production during the fourth century continued in the area south of the burial of the Lacedaimonians and the bathhouse in front of the Dipylon. Another large workshop was situated on the hill below the Kerameikos Museum, it was active in the late fourth and early third century BC. In the Early Roman period, a workshop was built within the ruins of the Pompeion courtyard, and from the last third of the 3rd until the sixth century AD, numerous kilns and workshops continuously produced clay lamps, pots and terracotta statuettes on the site, mainly within the city walls. Both Maria Chiara Monaco and Eleni Hasaki gave overviews of workshops in the Kerameikos.5

Kind of production on the site

5Red-figure pottery found in the Kerameikos is only occasionally production waste, a few misfired pieces and try pieces may represent scanty evidence for the activities of such production on the very site or nearby. Therefore, we can assume that the main centers of this production were not situated on the site itself, but somewhere close by as well as at a greater distance from the city, within the Demos Kerameon.

6A characteristic feature of the diachronic Kerameikos area production is the cooperation between potters and koroplasts.6 Proof for this can be found from the classical to late Roman-Early Christian period. As an example for this, I will briefly treat a small group of Athenian figure vases here, because they relate to the topic of the conference, the production in the Kerameikos area for local use. Although it may not be possible to identify product groups that do not occur in non-Athenian contexts at all, this specific local product is only attested in Athens until today.

PROCESSIONS TO THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES AND RELATED POTTERY

7The Sacred Street passes the homonymous gate in the Kerameikos site and it continues immediately along the southwest bank of the river Eridanos. It connected Athens with the mysteries’sanctuary and the ancient settlement of Eleusis. On the street, on several occasions during the year, processions took place. Most important of all was the yearly procession from Athens to the sanctuary of Eleusis on the 19th Boedromion, performed by all initiated citizens including women and even slaves.7 These processions were integral part of the cult of the Eleusinian mysteries. At least two main categories of pots can be related to these activities:

Eleusinian kernoi

8The Eleusinian kernoi were used during the processions to Eleusis: In these vessels, the participants kept the wheat mixture (κυκεών) they were eating at the end of the long walk to the sanctuary at Eleusis.8 The kernoi were carried on the head as represented on the Ninnion tablet in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.9

9A workshop for these kernoi has been excavated during the Metro works just outside the Kerameikos site, to the southwest of the Sacred Street.10 The debris of this and maybe also other workshops have been scattered around in the whole area. In particular, kernos fragments have been found in the layers around the Sacred Street, while several complete specimens were found in the Bau Z building behind the Sacred Gate11 and in a building along the southwestern border of the Kerameikos street.12

Figure vases with the representation of a youth holding a piglet

10Figure vases have been found both in graves and in sanctuaries in Athens and Attica, as well as in the northern Black Sea region.13 Therefore, for these and for certain groups of plastic vases in general, a function in cult, especially in chthonic cult, has been assumed.14

11Production of plastic vases on or very close to the excavation site is indicated by a relatively large number of pieces that have been found in the Kerameikos, almost exclusively along the Sacred Street (approximately 70 pieces so far). Among these, some are taken from the same mould, while others show clear signs of overfiring that characterizes them as misfired potter’s debris. Active in the first half of the fourth century BC, the workshop produced mainly small lekythoi, oinochoai jugs, but also rhyta or kantharoi.15

12Two small figure vessels (complete height approximately 12-15 cm) dated to the early fourth century by Maria Trumpf-Lyritzaki, can be connected with Eleusinian cult (cat. no. 1.2, fig. 1. 2): they show the figure of a naked and winged youth with a mantle draped around his back, more leaning than sitting relaxedly on a rock. With his left hand he holds the border of a mantle over his left thigh in a puff, while in his lowered right hand, he carries a piglet head down, grasping the hind leg of the animal. While the figure in both cases is taken out of the same mould, the vessels differ in shape: In cat. no. 2 (fig. 2), the body of the vessel in part is constituted by the body of the youth. The rest of the vertical handle on the back of the figure-vase had originally been unevenly covered by a vertical brush of black glaze, as it is characteristic for the whole group. In contrary, the body of the youth in cat. no. 1 (fig. 1, 1.4) is a solid statuette. Below the feet of the youth, the rest of a wheel-thrown base is preserved. The vase container was reduced to a small neck and mouth behind the head of the youth, both missing today.

13A fragment of a misfired juglet from another, probably standing figure, taken from a different mould, preserves the upper half of the body of a youth with the head sporting long curly locks adorned by a fillet covering part of the curls (cat. no. 4, fig. 4). All three pieces were originally provided with wings that are broken away. Finally, there is a third copy taken from the same mould as cat. nos. 1 and 2, but instead of a plastic vase, it is a plain terracotta statuette (cat. no. 3, fig. 3).

14On first sight, winged, naked youths like the ones on our figure vases (cat. 1, 2 figs. 1.2), with curly long hair look much like Erotes. There are several Athenian figure vases representing Eros during an offering of liquids or incense.16 But within the group, wings are not restricted to the representations of Eros. For instance, also children playing ball or the boys in abduction scenes or dionysiac dancers were equipped with wings. The wings, therefore, have been explained as being merely decorative, or they were seen as concealing device for the roughly worked backside of the figures. But more likely is the explanation given by Trumpf-Lyritzaki:17 the wings bestow on the figure a supernatural atmosphere, or they may even characterize the figures as god-like beings.18

15The connection to Eleusis is established by the piglet (χοιρίδιον19) the youth holds. The piglet was the main sacrifice animal used as an offering to the deities at Eleusis. During the purgatory rites in preparation for the participation in the cult at Eleusis,20 a piglet was carried to the sea (near Phaleron, at the Kantharos harbour or at the Rheitoi salt lake) on the 16th of the month Boedromion. Participants in the mysteries washed themselves there and they also cleaned the piglet in the water. It was to be sacrificed later, after their return to Athens. Obviously, the figures cat. 1. 2. and 3 (figs. 1-3) are representations of a young initiate preparing such an offering.

ICONOGRAPHY

16The boy carrying a piglet is reminiscent of an iconographic type21 that is represented by late Classical and Hellenistic marble statuettes found in Eleusis (figs. 6-7), in Roman versions from Rome (figs. 8-9), in classical and hellenistic terracotta figurines (figs. 1. 2. 3. 5) and on relief vases.22 The boy also occurs again on so-called Eleusinian festival coins from 86 BC.23 This youth wears a mantle draped around the lower body and carries a bakchos (a stick made out of myrtle leaves, bound together as symbol of the μύστης) in one hand, while in the other he holds the piglet, symbol of the purgatory rites performed in Eleusinian cult.

17Two figure vases show this second type, but both are lost today (fig. 5): One has initially been initially interpreted as Eubuleus. It is an attic lekythos-statuette said to have come from Tanagra, formerly in the Piot collection.24 A standing youth wears a mantle around the hips and over the left shoulder. In his lowered right hand, he holds the right hind-leg of a piglet, while his left hand holds the bakchos, symbol of the participant in Eleusinian cult. He has long, curly hair, crowned by a kind of polos and a wreath, much like cat. no. 4 (fig. 4). On both sides there are three added rosettes. A more fragmentary, second lekythos that reproduced this statue has been kept in the Gréau collection, showing the youth without a wreath25, it is said to have come from Cyprus. As our pieces, both can be dated to the 4th century BC.

18This iconographic type has been identified as “Παῖς ἀφ’ἑστίας μυηθείς” as mentioned in inscriptions from Eleusis from the 5th century BC to the Roman Imperial period26. Most likely, the type characterizes boys from noble Eupatrid Athenian families who were yearly selected to represent the other mystai in performing purgatory rites. In preparation to that, they were initiated at the hearth of Hestia (in the Prytaneion on the Agora). After they had fulfilled their duties, their proud parents sometimes dedicated statuettes in commemoration of this honour.

19It will not be coincidence, that our plastic vases and the figurine (cat. no. 1-3 fig. 1-3) representing a youth with a piglet, but without the bakchos, were found close to the fork of the Sacred Way and the street leading to the harbours. They seem to be products of a workshop in the vicinity that had adjusted part of its production to the needs of the immediate neighbourhood, just like the kernoi. Due to their findspots, it seems that both the plastic vases and the statuette were produced for the use of the passers-by: initiates, participants in processions or participants in funeral corteges along the streets. Thus, the locally produced small objects might have been dedications, souvenirs of the participation in Eleusinian cult or grave gifts.

CATALOGUE

20Cat. no. 1.

21Kerameikos, inv. no. T 496. Fragment of a small jug with plastic decoration; Seated youth with piglet.

22Exact findspot unknown.

23H: 10,1 cm; Clay: ochre, mica. (Munsell 7, 5 YR 6/4).

24Fragment of a massive figure of a winged youth with long curly hair. The head is missing. The youth sits on a rock, he wears a cloak covering his back. With his left hand he grasps the border of the cloak on his left thigh. In the lowered right hand he holds a piglet at the hind legs. On the backside there is a vertical stretch of black glaze that also covers the backside of the wings. Between the wings, the rest of the attached handle is preserved. The round base is wheel-thrown, the vase had only a small neck and mouth.

25Lit.: Trumpf-Lyritzaki 1969, 28 sq. no. 75.

26Cat. no. 2.

27Kerameikos, inv. no. T 497. Fragment of a small jug with plastic decoration; Seated youth with piglet.

28Found on the 24.4.1910 near grave precinct XX on the north side of the “street of the tombs”.

29H: 8,8 cm; Clay: ochre, mica. (Munsell 7,5 YR 6/4).

30Fragment of a juglet in the form of a winged youth with long, curly hair. The youth sits on a rock, he wears a cloak covering his back. With his left hand he grasps the border of the cloak on his left thigh. In the lowered right hand he holds the hind legs of a piglet. On the backside there is the rest of a vertical handle. The hollow body of the figure was used as the body of the vase. From the same mould as the previous piece.

31Lit.: Trumpf-Lyritzaki 1969, 29 no. 76.

32Cat. no. 3.

33Kerameikos, inv. no. T 498. Fragment of a terracotta statuette. Seated youth with piglet.

34Found in the Sacred Street in 1961/1962 in the fill of tomb HS 49 SK.

35H: 9,4 cm; Clay: ochre, mica. (Munsell 7,5 YR 6/4). Head, part of the arms and the feet are missing.

36Fragmentary statuette of a youth. The youth sits on a rock, wearing a cloak covering his back. With his left hand he grasps the border of the cloak on his left thigh. In the lowered right hand he holds the hind legs of a piglet. Back side closed and slightly rounded. No wings.

37From the same mould as the previous cat. nos.

38Lit.: Vierneisel-Schlörb 1997, 64 cat. 191 pl. 36, 3.4. – comp. Besques 1973, 625 note 35 pl. 188 fig. 18.

39Cat. no. 4.

40Kerameikos, inv. no. T 717. Fragment of a misfired small jug with plastic decoration; Seated youth with long curly hair.

41Found on the 25.10.1982 in sandy layer of the path near grave precinct IX on the corner terrace.

42H: 7 cm; Misfired, hard, dark brown clay (Munsell 7,5 YR 6/5-4).

43Fragment of a juglet representing a naked, winged youth with long curly hair. The head turned slightly to his left shoulder. Rest of white colour in the hair.

44Same type as the previous ones but from a different mould.

45Credits for the figures

46Figs. 1,1; 2,1; 3,1; 4,1: Drawing R. Docsan;
fig. 5: after Furtwängler 1892, p. 106 no. 19;
fig. 6: after Leventi 2010, p. 121, 136 fig. 12;
fig. 7: after Leventi 2010, p. 133 fig. 5;
fig. 8: after Bianchi 1976, fig. 44;
fig. 9: after Bianchi 1976, fig. 43;

47All other figs. Photo Jutta Stroszeck.