{"id":65,"date":"2006-12-15T19:42:21","date_gmt":"2006-12-16T01:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bdd337a9-8967-48b5-ab75-a43a37ba3913"},"modified":"2020-05-29T21:29:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T02:29:34","slug":"3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/3\/","title":{"rendered":"3: A Donkey-headed Rhyton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Donkey-headed Rhyton (Ancient Art Podcast 3)\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N9-swCZw0uA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/media\/episode3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hello and welcome back to the SCARABSolutions Ancient Art Podcast.<\/p>\n<p>In the previous two episodes, we\u2019ve been having a lot of fun in Ancient Egypt. In this episode, we\u2019re going to jump forward a little bit and hop the pond on over to Greece. I want us to look at what\u2019s probably my favorite piece in the Art Institute of Chicago\u2019s collection of Ancient Greek ceramics. The Art Institute has a few very beautiful and entertaining objects in its Ancient Greek collection, but this one really takes the cake.<\/p>\n<p>Nestled in a vitrine among all the grandiose High Classical red-figure amphoras, kraters, kylixes, and stamnoi, we find a cute little rhyton, a drinking cup. OK, here \u2026 let\u2019s do it right. *Ahem* This is a mid 5th Century BC Attic red-figure rhyton in the shape of a donkey\u2019s head attributed to the very prolific late Archaic, early Classical Athenian vase painter named Douris.<\/p>\n<p>To start things off here in our examination of this rhyton, let\u2019s first check out its interesting manufacturing technique. It exemplifies three primary methods for crafting ceramics in Classical Greece. The neck and rim of the cup was thrown on a potters wheel, the body of the vessel (which corresponds to the head and snout of the donkey) \u2026 this part was fashioned in a mold, and the ears and handle were shaped by hand. It\u2019s certainly not unique in this way, but it\u2019s nonetheless pretty interesting to see all three techniques used on one vessel.<\/p>\n<p>We could of course go into much further detail on its manufacture, specifically the firing process of black and red-figure Greek ceramics, but let\u2019s save that whole spiel for a later podcast.<\/p>\n<p>The rhyton is a common type of drinking cup in the shape of an animal\u2019s head. This vessel shape stretches far back to the Bronze Age Civilizations of Ancient Greece, the Minoans and Mycenaeans, the time of the heroic mythic warriors of Homer\u2019s Iliad and Odyssey and even to earlier periods in the civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Rhyta (that\u2019s the plural) from different regions come in a variety of shapes and sizes and aren\u2019t necessarily restricted to being in the shape of just the heads of an animals. They could be the whole front of the animal, the entire animal itself, or even just parts like a horn.<\/p>\n<p>Rhyta were also commonly used in rituals for libation offerings. Now, these rhyta regularly have a small hole in the mouth of the animal\u2019s head through which the libation offering pours out on to the offering table or whatever it was meant to pour out over.<\/p>\n<p>This style of rhyton that we have here is fairly common to Archaic and Classical Greece \u2014\u00a0just the head and neck \u2014 and in this case here, there\u2019s no hole in the mouth, so its function is clearly meant to hold a beverage instead of letting it pour through. And by \u201cbeverage,\u201d of course, I mean wine.<\/p>\n<p>Wine in Ancient Greece, however, was a little different from wine nowadays. The Greeks, believe it or not, actually watered down their wine. Not to do so was considered barbaric, literally, as in how the barbarians drank their wine (mostly Northern Europeans). And interestingly enough, the word barbarian derives from how the Greeks perceived certain foreign languages to sound. When foreign people spoke, all the Greeks heard was \u201cbar-bar-bar-bar-bar.\u201d Sounds pretty silly and made up, but it\u2019s the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Now, back to the rhyton. The one we have here is made out of ceramic. Earthenware, specifically terra cotta. It was most likely crafted with the intent of being buried in someone\u2019s grave, where it\u2019s said to have been found \u2014 similar to all the other ceramics in the Art Institute\u2019s Ancient Greek collection (not all from the same grave, of course). Rhyta were used in daily life, but by and large the rhyta crafted for use by the living were made of precious metals, like bronze, silver, and gold. The rhyton was not the drinking cup of your average bloke. These vessels were reserved pretty much for the aristocracy of Greek society, be it Classical or earlier. These are the goblets used in the heroic feasts by great warriors on the eve of battle. The dinnerware of Achilles, Agamemnon, Menelaeus, and Odysseus at the siege of Troy.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that story was late Bronze Age, early Iron Age. Fifth century BC Athenian aristocracy didn\u2019t regularly engage much in heroic warrior feasts. Instead, wealthy Athenian good-ole-boys would get together at dinner parties and drinking engagements to socialize, talk politics and money, and on special occasions maybe say something intelligent.<\/p>\n<p>The types of animals rendered in the shape of the rhyton are also significant. You frequently comes across a rhyton in the shape of a goat, ram, bull, deer, or horse, and in this example here, a donkey. It\u2019s not coincidence that these are the same kinds of animals used as sacrificial victims in Greek religion. See, while engaging in their modern drinking parties, the Classical Athenian aristocracy was symbolically participating in those heroic warrior feasts of yore. On the eve of battle with the great warriors gathered around, a priest offers up a sacrifice to Zeus and whatever other gods were listening, slicing the throat and spilling the warm blood of the goat, ram, etc. Whereas here, the Athenian, leisurely sprawled on his couch, pours the bright red liquid from the throat of the animal and down the hatch. And the thanks is offered up to a different god. Dionysus, the god of wine.<\/p>\n<p>Decorating the neck of the vessel (cute, huh \u2026 the pottery term \u201cneck\u201d actually corresponds here with the literal neck of the donkey) \u2026 decorating the neck of the vessel, we see a couple figures \u2014 the half-goat half-man satyr (followers of Dionysus) with his bushy beard, pointy ears, long bristly tail, and penchant for not wearing pants (because pants would just get in the way of the satyr\u2019s other penchant), in hot pursuit of a maenad, female followers of Dionysus that would run off into the woods at night in wild Dionysiac reveries, and in packs chase down live deer and with their bare hands, rip them apart limb from limb, and consume the hot raw flesh and blood. The Greeks actually had a word for that. It\u2019s called sparagmos.<\/p>\n<p>The Classical Greek drinking party was nothing nearly as violent, or religious for that matter, but they had a word for that too. The symposium. Now, when we think of a symposium, we picture a bunch of professors getting together, reading some less-than-exhilarating papers, and then having a little wine and cheese. The Greeks skipped the papers \u2026 went straight to the wine \u2026 and cheese was optional. The Greek word symposion with an \u201cON\u201d (from which we get the Latin symposium with a \u201cUM\u201d) literally means \u201cdrinking together.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re probably thinking I\u2019m off my rocker, at least those of you who\u2019ve heard of Plato\u2019s Symposium where Socrates and a bunch of his friends get together one evening and each in turn makes a grand speech on \u201cwhat is love\u201d and extolling its virtues. But if you look back towards the beginning of the text, you\u2019ll see a very different side to their refined symposium.<\/p>\n<p>And I quote, section 176A&amp;B from a translation by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Hackett Publishing Company, etc etc):<\/p>\n<p>When dinner was over, they poured a libation to the god, sang a hymn, and\u2014in short\u2014followed the whole ritual. Then they turned their attention to drinking. At that point Pausanias addressed the group:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, gentlemen, how can we arrange to drink less tonight? To be honest, I still have a terrible hangover from yesterday, and I could really use a break. I daresay most of you could, too, since you were also part of the celebration. So let\u2019s try not to overdo it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aristophanes replied: \u201cGood idea, Pausanias. We\u2019ve got to make a plan for going easy on the drink tonight. I was over my head last night myself, like the others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, we see, even Socrates\u2019s philosophical brood was not impervious to the temptation of drink.<\/p>\n<p>Getting back to the shape of the donkey-headed rhyton, just how do you set it down? Many other rhyta, especially the ritual libation rhyta and the ones from Near Eastern and Eastern European civilizations, have a flat bottom, so they could be set down right-side up, but the only way to set down this example is on its side or upside-down! So, if you want to set it down, you have to polish off your drink first! The shape of this rhyton, therefore, actually encourages drinking! What a perfect cup for a symposium. And just how does one drink from it? If you drink from it the same way you normally drink from a mug, with the handle to the side, the donkey\u2019s ear would get in the way and you might just dribble on yourself. You\u2019re best bet is probably to hold the handle underneath so the donkey face is right-side-up. And then as you\u2019re kicking back your head, tipping the rhyton up to polish off your wine, suddenly you\u2019ve got the face of an ass!<\/p>\n<p>This idea of transformation through drink was not lost on the Ancient Greeks. Wine was regularly attributed with various therapeutic, medicinal, or even malignant properties. And in some examples, we even come across wine being equated with a sort of magic potion capable of transforming the drinker in various ways. The characters in Plato\u2019s Laws briefly discuss the qualities in wine that transform one to be braver, bolder, more conceited, and looser with the tongue. Another relatively common expression of transformation through wine in Greek art can be seen on a large number of kylixes, another kind of drinking vessel more so in the shape of a bowl rather than a cup.<\/p>\n<p>A brief side-track first. The kylix was also frequently used in Greek symposia, and not just for drinking. The Greeks actually had drinking games. One particular favorite was called kottabos and here\u2019s a kylix that even came with instructions. This mid 5th century Attic red-figure kylix at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts shows a reclining youth in the act of playing kottabos. As I mentioned earlier, Greek wine was a little different from the wine that we have today. Not only was it watered down, but it also had far more sediment, so you\u2019d likely have some dregs leftover in the bottom of your cup. The idea in kottabos was to twirl your kylix around, flinging out the sediment, to see who could come closest to the target in the middle of the room, whether the target be a jug or some poor flute girl.<\/p>\n<p>Now back to the idea of how the kylix was commonly used to express the idea of transformation through drink. The typical kylix is decorated on both the inside, with a lovely picture for the drinker, and on the outside with pictures to be seen by all of his friends as he holds the bowl high to his lips. On the outside decoration of the kylix, you often come across two large glaring eyes penetrating the onlooker, as we see here in another example from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The drinker grasps the kylix by the two handles and holds it up to his face as he takes a drink, thereupon donning a monstrous mask, a face like the Gorgon Medusa, who\u2019s said to have been so fiendishly ugly with snakes for hair, that her gaze would turn you to stone.<\/p>\n<p>We might also remember that interesting chapter from Homer\u2019s Odyssey where Odysseus\u2019s comrades are transformed into pigs by the witch Circe through a magic potion and a touch of a wand.<\/p>\n<p>As Richmond Lattimore translates \u2026<\/p>\n<p>And at once she opened the shining doors and came out and invited them in, and all in their innocence entered. Only Eurylochos waited outside, for he suspected theachery. She brought them inside and seated them on chairs and benches, and mixed them a potion with barley and cheese and pale honey added to Pramnian wine, but put into the mixture malignant drugs to make them forgetful of their own country. When she had given them this and they had drunk it down, next thing she struck them with her wand and drove them into her pig pens and they took on the look of pigs with the heads and voices and bristles of pigs, but the minds within them stayed as had been before.<\/p>\n<p>And here\u2019s another great kylix from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts showing Circe in the act of drugging Odysseus\u2019s friends and transforming them into pigs. The shape of the vessel that Circe uses for her potion helps the message along in that it resembles the kylix on which this scene is painted. With each casual glance, then, as the wine gradually disappears, the drinker from this kylix constantly reminds himself that he too may share the fate of Odysseus\u2019s men, becoming, well, \u2026 a sloppy drunken animal if he doesn\u2019t watch his liquor!<\/p>\n<p>Alright, thanks for listening. Be sure to check out the website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scarabsolutions.com\/\">scarabsolutions.com<\/a> for slightly better resolution images used in the podcast. I\u2019ve also updated the bibliography to include some resources on Ancient Greece.<\/p>\n<p>And as always, feel free to leave you comments on the website or at the iTunes Store. Just launch iTunes, click on the iTunes Store, and in the search box type however much you care to of \u201cSCARABsolutions Ancient Art Podcast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Take care and see ya next time!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a92006 Lucas Livingston, ancientartpodcast.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,4],"tags":[36,24,120],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Donkey-Rhyton-1905.345-large.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s7RFIB-3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3355,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/3355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientartpodcast.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}