The Horse Amphora is the oldest known Melian Amphora and is among the largest examples of the type. The amphora is 88 centimetres high, the lid is not preserved.
The name of the vessel derives from its main image, which shows two slim, graceful, long-legged horses standing beside each other. The two are separated by a palmette. While their bodies are shown as silhouettes, the heads are depicted in outline. The empty space was filled with various motifs, including zigzags which recall earlier images of Group Ad, though the drawings are far more detailed than those of the Ad Group. Along with the zigzags, there are also double-volutes and leaf-rosettes. Out-turned double-volutes are found on the neck which are filled with cross-hatching. The two ornamental bands of the vessel's body are decorated with simpler double-volutes and concentric circles. The horizontal double handles are reminiscent of goats' horns (or, really, anything curved...). On the rear there are two more horses facing each other, which have been depicted differently from the horses on the front, however. Both sides were decorated therefore, but the rear has mostly flaked off.
The horse motif fits with its use as a grave vase, since the horse had sepulchral symbolism.
An amphora is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land or sea. The size and shape have been determined from at least as early as the Neolithic Period. Amphorae were used in vast numbers for the transport and storage of various products, both liquid and dry, but mostly for wine. They are most often ceramic, but examples in metals and other materials have been found. Versions of the amphorae were one of many shapes used in Ancient Greek vase painting.
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic, is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BCE. Stylistically it can be distinguished from the preceding orientalizing period and the subsequent red-figure pottery style.
Exekias was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter who was active in Athens between roughly 545 BC and 530 BC. Exekias worked mainly in the black-figure technique, which involved the painting of scenes using a clay slip that fired to black, with details created through incision. Exekias is regarded by art historians as an artistic visionary whose masterful use of incision and psychologically sensitive compositions mark him as one of the greatest of all Attic vase painters. The Andokides painter and the Lysippides Painter are thought to have been students of Exekias.
Red-figure pottery is a style of ancient Greek pottery in which the background of the pottery is painted black while the figures and details are left in the natural red or orange color of the clay.
A krater or crater was a large two-handled type of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water.
The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art of most of Eurasia, often in forms that bear relatively little resemblance to the original. In ancient Greek and Roman uses it is also known as the anthemion. It is found in most artistic media, but especially as an architectural ornament, whether carved or painted, and painted on ceramics. It is very often a component of the design of a frieze or border. The complex evolution of the palmette was first traced by Alois Riegl in his Stilfragen of 1893. The half-palmette, bisected vertically, is also a very common motif, found in many mutated and vestigial forms, and especially important in the development of plant-based scroll ornament.
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, c. 900–700 BC. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean. The Greek Dark Ages lasted from c. 1100 to 750 BC and include two periods, the Protogeometric period and the Geometric period, in reference to the characteristic pottery style. The vases had various uses or purposes within Greek society, including, but not limited to, funerary vases and symposium vases.
The pottery of ancient Greece has a long history and the form of Greek vase shapes has had a continuous evolution from Minoan pottery down to the Hellenistic period. As Gisela Richter puts it, the forms of these vases find their "happiest expression" in the 5th and 6th centuries BC, yet it has been possible to date vases thanks to the variation in a form’s shape over time, a fact particularly useful when dating unpainted or plain black-gloss ware.
The Darius Painter was an Apulian vase painter and the most eminent representative at the end of the "Ornate Style" in South Italian red-figure vase painting in Magna Graecia. His works were produced between 340 and 320 BC.
Apulian vase painting was a regional style of South Italian vase painting from ancient Apulia in Magna Graecia. It comprises geometric pottery and red-figure pottery.
Pottery was produced in enormous quantities in ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. It is found all over the former Roman Empire and beyond. Monte Testaccio is a huge waste mound in Rome made almost entirely of broken amphorae used for transporting and storing liquids and other products – in this case probably mostly Spanish olive oil, which was landed nearby, and was the main fuel for lighting, as well as its use in the kitchen and washing in the baths.
The Horsehead Amphora is a specific type of amphora, produced in Athens from about 600 BC onwards. They are vessels with a very pronounced belly, decorated with black figure horseheads on both sides. In a single case, one side depicts a woman's head. In contrast to earlier belly amphorae, the painters did not apply a separate frieze on the neck. The decoration was painted within reserved rectangular panels; the remaining vase of the body was painted black. More than 100 such amphorae are known; they were painted by a variety of artists, including ones of mediocre quality.
The Leagros Group was a group of Attic black-figure vase painters active during the last two decades of the 6th century BC. The name given to the group by modern scholars is a conventional one, derived from a series of name vases.
The Pontic Group is a sub-style of Etruscan black-figure vase painting.
Campanian vase painting is one of the five regional styles of South Italian red-figure vase painting fabricated in Magna Graecia. It forms a close stylistic community with Apulian vase painting.
Melian Pithamphorae or Melian Amphorae are names for a type of large belly-handled amphorae, which were produced in the Archaic period in the Cyclades. On account of their shape and painted decoration in the Orientalising style, they are among the most famous Greek vases. The amphorae are dated to the seventh and early sixth centuries BC; the last of them was made in the 580s. They were used as grave markers with the same function as the later grave statues and reliefs and were dedicated as cult objects in sanctuaries. With the increasing importance of sculpture in these roles, the production of these vases came to an end.
The Rider Amphora is the name given to a Melian pithamphora in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens with the inventory number 912. It dates from around 660 BC.
The Neck Amphora by Exekias is a neck amphora in the black figure style by the Attic vase painter and potter Exekias. It is found in the possession of the Antikensammlung Berlin under the inventory number F 1720 and is on display in the Altes Museum. It depicts Herakles' battle with the Nemean lion on one side and the sons of Theseus on the other. The amphora could only be restored for the first time almost a hundred and fifty years after its original discovery due to negligence and political difficulties.
The Dipylon Amphora is a large Ancient Greek painted vase, made around 760–750 BC, and is now held by the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Discovered at the Dipylon cemetery, this stylistic vessel belonging to the Geometric period is credited to an unknown artist: the Dipylon Master. The amphora is covered entirely in ornamental and geometric patterns, as well as human figures and animal-filled motifs. It is also structurally precise, being that it is as tall as it is wide. These decorations use up every inch of space, and are painted on using the black-figure technique to create the silhouetted shapes. Inspiration for the Greek vase derived not only from its intended purpose as a funerary vessel, but also from artistic remnants of Mycenaean civilization prior to its collapse around 1100 BC. The Dipylon Amphora signifies the passing of an aristocratic woman, who is illustrated along with the procession of her funeral consisting of mourning family and friends situated along the belly of the vase. The woman's nobility and status is further emphasized by the plethora of detail and characterized animals, all which remain in bands circling the neck and belly of the amphora.
The find complex associated with a group of ancient Apulian picture vases for a funeral ceremony consists of 29 vases, plates, vase fragments, and fragment groups, which are showpieces of the Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities in the Altes Museum. The vase ensemble comprises vases of varying sizes and values, consistently decorated with images in the rich style of Apulian vase painting. Additionally, there are vases of medium and low quality. All the pieces likely originate from a looted excavation in the latter half of the 20th century.
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