Amphora

Uninscribed Panathenaic amphora in the typical decoration of Panathenaic amphoras: they are always in the black figure on red background technique, even though their production extended to the the time that most pottery was in red figure. On one side the amphoras show the sport or game of the Panathenaic festival that athletes competed in and they have on the other side Athena, the goddess celebrated during the festival. In this one Athena holds a shield device of 3 white balls. She is standing in between two Doric columns that have owls on them. This representation is meant to be of the cult figure of Athena deriving from architectural monuments and perhaps the statue of Athena Promachos. On the other side there are two men wrestling, overseen by judge, seated to the right and another standing and holding the typical instructive stick to the left of the vessel. The pattern on the neck is unusual Graffito: eight vertical strokes. Panathenaic amphoras were normally awarded to the winning athletes as a prize and they would be filled with oil. In these cases they were much bigger in size that this example and they would also be inscirbed with the name of the winning athlete.