London B 130 (Vase)
Body, side A: Athena striding; side B: Chariot raceNeck, side A: siren; side B: owl
- ID:
- aa_5264
- Beazley Number:
- 300828
- Type:
- Vase
- Date:
- ca. -560
- Period:
- High Archaic
- Context:
- Athens
- Region:
- Attica
- Painter:
- Name vase of the Burgon Group
- Condition:
Side B is much repaired.
- Dimensions:
-
H 0.615m
- Ware:
- Attic Black Figure
- Shape:
- Panathenaic amphora
Decoration Description
Side A: Athena stands to the right, facing left. Her head, waist, and feet are shown in profile, while her shoulders are frontal. She holds her shield with her left hand and raises a spear high above her head with her right. She wears a helmet, the high crest of which overlaps the upper border of the panel, the shield bears the device of a dolphin, facing left. She wears a peplos in added red with incised meanders, girt at the waist with a broad girdle, over which hangs an overfold with meander borders, and an aegis with a fringe of snakes. Her face and arms are in added white for female flesh. In front of her is inscribed in retrograde,
Side B: The synoris, a cart race with a team of two horses or mules, indicates the event for which the winner won the prize. A beardless driver in a light cart on the left drives on a pair of horses on the right in a race to the right. The driver sits with his feet resting on a foot board in the front of the car. He wears a sleeveless chiton in added red. He holds a goad in his right hand and a kalaurops (a long rod from which hang two pointed metal objects to incite the horses with their jingling). The horses are yoked to a transverse bar fastened to the pole; their yokes are those customarily used for mules. The wheels are those of cart not a chariot with no spokes, but a diametrical bar crossed by two at right angles. On the neck of side B is an owl with frontal face, facing right, its right wing stretched out, its left wing down. on the lower body is a band of rays.
Inside it were found cremated bones and six small vases: a black-figure lekythos, a plain hand-made jug, and four black glaze vessels, funerary offerings for the man who had presumably won one of the most prestigious games at the Panathenaic festival. This is the earliest known Panathenaic amphora.
Graffiti
In front of Athena is inscribed
- Collection:
- London, British Museum
Found in the Burgon Tomb, discovered by Thomas Burgon near the Acharnian (northern city Gate) in 1813, ex Burgon Collection, 1842
