Hello,
My name is Emma. I'm the Documentations
Officer
at Williamson Art Gallery & Museum.
Today I've decided to pick for you
an Ancient Greek item we have in our
collection.
We have quite a few items that date to
Ancient Greece
in our archaeology collection, so it's an
amazing opportunity to be able to share
this with you
at this time. This dates to
the early 6th century BCE, and as you can
see
how it's decorated is with a
lion and bull facing each other on the
one side.
Then on the other side we have
two sirens depicted facing each other as
well,
so it's a very very intricate item.
It's believed to be a drinking vessel.
which is
quite unusual I guess for us, because it
is so large.
But given the elaborateness and the
ornateness of this piece - it's very thin,
it's very light and it's very
intricately decorated.
So it's obviously very well made. And it
would have belonged to someone
very high up, they wouldn't have
been
in any way
lacking in money. So they may have well
thrown parties and
had vessels enough to hold the
wine that was required in those events.
So maybe that's why it's so large!
The style of this
is quite common for that time period,
it is a 'Corinthian' style, so
that's one way in which we can date it
to the early sixth century.
It is that very stereotypical
Ancient Greek
red earth, the kind that you
see in the movies
with figures all around. A lot of times
you'd have
humans depicted around,
very well-known myth, Ancient
Greek myths that
would be depicted around, 
mythical figures such as sirens,
animals such as
this lion and bull here. And
fight scenes - party scenes - even
some of the more taboo ones
with sexual scenes all around. And these
would have been -
not at the time - but to us quite shocking.
But it was just all part of conveying
the event, the party. That
kind of
over-the-top kind of feel
in the way that they would have at
those kind of
meals and events.
Anymore to tell you on this? No I don't think so, only that it is a
very stunning piece, it's in fantastic
condition
and I hope you enjoyed getting a look
into
some of our behind-the-scenes collection.
Thank you.
