🚨 TOP TEN ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN (Hellenistic) POTTERY SHAPES (and their best in show) 🚨
A lot of these are going to be from Athens. This isn’t because Athens is the best polis at pottery, but because most of the surviving material culture from Greek antiquity was found in Athens. This is just the facts of classics, deal with it.
This is just a pitcher. A boring boring pitcher used to pour wine. It could have been so much more. where’s the flare? I have nothing left to say.
Best in show: Wtf is he doin with that hog? Wheelbarrow racing? Just kidding, this is actually Herakles defeating that boar and bringing it to Athena. which is cool but its still just a fucking pitcher. (~510 BCE Athens)
It’s a little vial/jug that holds oils and perfumes. BORING. Do more, be better. Alabastra are the type of vase that wouldn’t stand a chance in a fist fight. I need a bad bitch piece of pottery and this shit isn’t cutting it.
Best in show: This Etruscan alabastron. She’s cute! I too like to paint little cats. (620-590 BCE, Corinth)
She’s tried and true. She’s a classic. She’s basic as hell. Amphorai have many uses but mainly they’re just glorified modern kitchen Pyrex. They just contain shit. Grains? ✔️ Oil? ✔️ Human Ashes? ✔️ Multipurpose icon, but it’s also the only pottery type with its own emoji 🏺 so she’s too mainstream for my taste. All my homies appreciate the amphora, but it’s never gonna be top 5.
Best in show: Exekias’ pot of mythic warriors Achilles and Ajax playing a lil game. How fun! I love a game night. (~540 BCE Athens)
The amphora’s cooler cousin. stamnoi are bad bitches all around. They’re stouter and are made to hold liquids like water and wine (and sometimes as diluting vessels.) They have the same powerful vibe as amphorai but they’re more underground, you’ve probably never heard of them before.
Best in show: Listen. Is she a little flawed? Yes. Is she serving cunt? Kinda. This stamnos depicts Dionysus and his maenads and satyrs! Rad as hell. (370–360 B.C. Etruscan)
6. The Volute Krater ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Kraters are wine mixing pots where water is added to super concentrated wines to make them actually drinkable. Kraters have many different styles but the best of them is the Volute Krater - just like a normal krater, but with fancier handles. They’ve got a very classic look I think, I’d want to hang out with one they seem like they have really expensive and classy tastes. The sugar mommy of ancient pottery.
Best in show: What a pretty mother fucker. (~320 B.C, Etruscan).
5. The Lebes Gamikos ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
So… This one is really weird looking and also really pretty. Has maybe the least practical lid I’ve ever seen but who can even blame it when it looks that pretty? A lebes would have been used as a cooking pot. A COOKING POT. CAN YOU IMAGINE WHIPPING THIS BITCH OUT TO MAKE MAC AND CHEESE????
Best in show: TO COOK WITH??????????? It’s got Eros on it and a smaller decorative lebes as the handle. So extra and for what? (350 - 325 BCE Apulia.)
4. The Loutrophorus ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
These guys are tall and skinny and potters liked to go ham on the handles. They were ceremonial vases that held water. They’re just really impressive. I mean just look at it. Potters and Painters got to go crazy on these things because they were only really used for big and important rituals and events so they could be as fancy and special as they wanted.
Best in show: I mean,,,, come on folks. This piece has the head of a woman on the lid and each side is decorated with tons of gods and goddesses. It is ornate, it was expensive, it is a fucking queen. (330 BCE)
Perhaps a little over rated but definitely not as overhyped as the amphora, the kylix is a wide shallow pot used for sippin’ on drinks in super style. They have painted eyes and when you drink from them the eyes become part of your face and the handles look like ears. This is life changing information. These bitches are big and dramatic, much like me. They were really popular in Mycenean Greece (before the dark ages that birthed the classical Hellenic period we all know and love – the ancient Greece of ancient Greece) which just screams Scorpio energy; how mysterious and cool of them. These baddies have art not just on the outside, but the inside too!
Best in show: Reminds me of that crazy look anime characters get when they’re about to go off the rails (~510 BCE Athens.) a second less cool kylix is also pictured to show you what they would look like when you drank from them. Hilarious.
Pyxides are the unsung hero of ancient pottery. Most pottery charts will not feature them. But Pyxides are a girl’s best friend.
The pyxis is serves as a little jewelry box, a little box for all your trinkets, a little makeup kit. This is the fun type of versatility (👀🏺 get good amphora) These little guys sit on your ancient vanity and open up from the top with a fun shaped handle. Because they were made for women we get a lot of cool insights on women’s lives (and a lot of wedding stuff) in antiquity from these little guys!
Best in show: THIS pyxis depicting a bride preparing for her wedding. Outside she takes a little bath with Eros (winged god of love who later becomes our modern Cupid) and inside he sits on her lap. Talk about a wing man! (~410 BCE Athens.)
1. The Kantharos ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
If you don’t think a kantharos could steal your girl you’re wrong. These bitches have everything you could ever look for. They’re smaller drinking cups that were most likely used for rituals due to how crazy ornate most of them are. Some of them are even molded to look like heads, that is simultaneously really badass and also very unserious!!
Best(s) in show: A classic ornate kantharos with silver plating depicting the death of Orpheus and the kidnapping of Helen. Look at how fucking GORGEOUS it is (~415 BC.) And a head kantharos (also called a janiform kantharos as they have two faces!) of a satyr and a woman. Imagine drinking from this I would feel so powerful (420 B.C. Athens.)
