| Collection: | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
| Summary: | Drinking horn in the shape of a boat. |
| Ware: | Boeotian |
| Date: | ca. 750 BC |
| Dimensions: | H 0.15m L 0.30 m |
| Shape: | Boat vase |
| Period: | Geometric |
Decoration Description:
The body of the vessel is in the form of a wide, covered galley on three legs. It has a long sharp prow, deck works in front (on which was a detachable figure), and a high stern against which the steersman (painted black) reclines. In the center of the vessel is a mouth for filling, and the drinking hole is at the end of the stern. At the top of the sides is a band of strokes and dots between horizontal lines; on each side of the prow is an eye. The deck works are marked off by rectangles. There is a row of dots around the mouth and an abbreviated meander along each side of the deck.
Vermeule (181) notes that this vase is "sometimes thought of as the poet Hesiod on his nervous journey from Aulis to Chalkis to sing in the funeral games, a distance of some six hundred yards which inspired in him remarkable advice on how evil it is for a man to desire uncomfortable sea journeys (
Material Description:
The clay is red brown.
Collection History:
Froman Sale Cat., 1899, no. 264. Henry L. Pierce Fund, 1899.
Sources Used:
Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley 1979) 181, fig. 2