Kanoun (offering basket)

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Sacrificial procession with a preceding Kanephoros and Kanoun ( Pitsa tablet from near Corinth, around 540-530 BC, NAMA 16464)

Kanoun ( ancient Greek τό κανοῦν to kanoún , also τό κάνεον to káneon , plural τά κανᾶ ta kaná ) mostly refers to the sacrificial basket in the Greek sacrificial system.

The word is probably derived from the Greek word for pipe - κάννα kánna - and originally meant a container made of braided pipe. In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , the term Kanoun is mostly used in a profane context as a container for storing bread, onions and leftovers. But Homer also knows the Kanoun for removing and storing the sacrificial barley.

While the word in the literary evidence of the 6th century BC Not encountered, it appears in the 5th century BC. As an offering basket. The Kanoun was now used to transport the sacrificial barley, the bandages and the sacrificial knife for animal sacrifices. Whether the sacrificial knife should be hidden from the sacrificial animal in this way - as later attempts at explanation suggest - or whether it should be sanctified by contact with the barley has not been conclusively clarified.

The kana were carried by basket-bearers, the canephores , in a procession to the place of the sacrifice. From archaic times, however, two depictions with male basket-bearers are known. Arrived at the altar, the kana are handed over to the priest, with Aristophanes the altar is first circled. It was possible to swear over the sacrificial baskets, touching them requires ritual purity. This underlines the sacred charge of the Kanoun itself, which also played a role as a kanoun nymphikon in the wedding rituals and thus in the private sphere.

The Kanoun could be made of different materials. Literary sources and temple inventories name gold, silver and bronze, as well as gold-plated constructions made of cane and wicker. Representations in the Greek vase painter show kana of various shapes. In addition to flat, plate-shaped or tray-shaped baskets, kana with higher walls and three raised handles are found in Athens in particular. The threefold of the handles remains characteristic of the Attic pieces despite all changes in their representation. Attempts to identify these three-handled kana in finds from pre-archaic times and to derive them from older, even Mycenaean models, are controversial. The classic canoe with three handles, probably from Athens, was less common in the Magna Graecia . There are also shapes with no handles here.

It cannot be proven that the different forms of the Kanoun were used in different sacrificial contexts or phases of the ritual - higher forms for the procession, flatter forms for the performance of the sacrifice. Instead, Ingrid Krauskopf suggested seeing two-part containers in the high kana, the top of which could be removed if necessary during the ritual.

literature

  • Ludwig Deubner : wedding and offering basket. In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute . Volume 40, 1925, pp. 210-223 ( digitized version ).
  • Franz Humborg: Kanoun. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplement volume IV, Stuttgart 1924, Col. 867-875.
  • Jan Bažant: The Sacrificial Basket in Vase Painting and Possible Persistence of Several Elements of Minoan-Mycenaean Religion in Classical Greece. In: Acta Universitatis Carolinae philologica. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 61-86.
  • Jochen Schelp: The Kanoun, the Greek basket of sacrifices (= contributions to archeology. Volume 8). Konrad Triltsch, Würzburg 1975.
  • Pierre Bonnechere: La μάχαιρα était dissimulée dans le κανοὺν : quelques interrogations. In: Revue des études anciennes . Volume 101, 1999, pp. 21-35 ( digitized version ).
  • Ingrid Krauskopf : Kanoun. In: Jean-Charles Balty , Mark Greenberg et al. (Eds.): Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum. Volume 5: Cult Personnel; Cult instruments. Getty Publications, Los Angeles 2005, pp. 269-274.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Homer, Iliad 9,216 f .; 24.625 f .; Odyssey 1,147; 8.69 f. and more often.
  2. ↑ Homer, Iliad 11,630.
  3. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 20,299 f.
  4. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 3, 439-442; 4,761.
  5. ↑ Aristophanes , The Birds 848–850; The peace 947 f. 956 f.
  6. ↑ Suda , keyword κανοῦν , Adler number: kappa 318 , Suda-Online .
  7. ↑ Pierre Bonnechere: La μάχαιρα était dissimulée dans le κανοὺν: quelques interrogations. In: Revue des études anciennes . Volume 101, 1999, pp. 21-35
  8. ↑ Aristophanes, The Birds 956 f.
  9. ↑ See the pseudo-Demosthenic speech Demosthenes 59.78 ( Against Neaira ) and Demosthenes, Against Androtion 78.
  10. ↑ Jan Bažant: The Sacrificial Basket in Vase Painting and Possible Persistence of Several Elements of Minoan-Mycenaean Religion in Classical Greece. In: Acta Universitatis Carolinae philologica. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 61-86.
  11. ↑ See for example Bernhard Schmaltz : Review of Jochen Schelp: The Kanoun, the Greek basket of sacrifices. In: Gnomon . Volume 50, 1978, pp. 770-775, here pp. 771-773; but see Ingrid Krauskopf : Kanoun. In: Jean-Charles Balty , Mark Greenberg et al. (Eds.): Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum. Volume 5: Cult Personnel; Cult instruments. Getty Publications, Los Angeles 2005, pp. 269-274, here p. 269.
  12. ^ So Jan Bažant: The Sacrificial Basket in Vase Painting and Possible Persistence of Several Elements of Minoan-Mycenaean Religion in Classical Greece. In: Acta Universitatis Carolinae philologica. Volume 1, 1974, pp. 61-86, here pp. 65-67.
  13. ↑ Ingrid Krauskopf: Kanoun. In: Jean-Charles Balty , Mark Greenberg et al. (Eds.): Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum. Volume 5: Cult Personnel; Cult instruments. Getty Publications, Los Angeles 2005, pp. 269-274, here p. 270.