Burgon vase
The Burgon vase is the earliest surviving Panathenaic prize amphora and name vase of the ancient Greek painters of the Burgon group . The amphora was excavated in Athens in 1813 and is named after Thomas Burgon (1787–1858), a merchant of the Levant Company, who also brought it to England and sold it to the museum. It is exhibited today in the British Museum with the vase catalog number B 130 (Inv. GR 1842.7-28.834). The back is badly damaged as a result of being hit by a heel. The form of the year 560 BC The vase, dating from the 4th century BC, is short and stocky, the mouth very low, the neck short. The handles are tight and small. The foot is tiny in relation to the vessel. The 61 cm high Burgon vase itself was found full of bone fragments, so it served as an ash container.
Description of the pictures
The vase is painted in black-figure style with images of the Greek goddess Athena with a flying siren and an owl , as well as a chariot driver with a pair of horses.
Athena is turned to the left. She wears a helmet with a low crest, the body of which is painted red and resembles a cap. The left arm swings a spear with a particularly carefully drawn tip. The goddess's robe consists of a long sleeveless belted peplos . The diploidion - a part of the peplos that is folded over at the height of the shoulders - is decorated with a meander at the top , while the skirt itself is decorated with a vertical border consisting of filled squares and a hooked hem at the bottom. Athena's recessed foot still touches the ground with almost the entire sole. The serpentine edge of the Aegis is indicated by two large, curling serpents and one that peeks out over the shoulder. The shield Athena wears in her right hand shows a dolphin turned to the left . To the left of Athena is the left- hand inscription ΤΟΝΑΘΕΝΕΘ (Ε) ΝΑΘΛΟΝΕΜΙ (“I am one of the prizes from Athens”) written from top to bottom in letters from the 6th century BC. Chr.
On the back is a beardless, seated charioteer in a red robe. With his feet on a step, he drives a pair of horses to the right. He holds the sting in his right hand and the calaurops with bell in his left to drive the horses. The wheel construction with only two spokes and two vertical reinforcement supports makes it similar to the bronze wheel from Olympia .
On the neck without ornamentation we find a siren in front, an owl behind , both with exactly the same wing position.
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Burgon,_John_William_%28DNB01%29 Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement Burgon, John William by Albert Frederick Pollard
literature
- Peter Oluf Brøndsted ; William Roger Hamilton; John William Burgon : Mémoire sur les vases panathénaïques: adressé, en forme de lettre à MWR Hamilton, Firmin Didot frères, Paris 1833.
- Georg von Brauchitsch : The Panathenaic price amphoras . Teubner, Leipzig 1910, p. 6-8 ( online [accessed June 5, 2011]).