Patera (vessel)
The patera is an ancient Greek as well as a Roman vessel, which was used particularly in the Lower Italian and Roman cults .
The patera, sometimes also referred to as a button-handle bowl , is a special form of Apulian ceramics . The large bowls, measuring up to 70 centimeters in diameter, have two handles on the edge , which are studded and framed by buttons. Pictures were often shown inside, often tomb scenes. Outside pictures were applied less often. It is unclear exactly for what purposes these bowls were used, but a ritual purpose seems certain. Most of the time the shape was created from clay.
The Roman variant of the patera is similar to the Greek phiale . The bowl shape is flat, round and handle-free and has an inwardly curved hump (omphalos) in the middle . The shape was used as a sacrificial bowl in the entire Roman culture. From the bowl, which was libation (libatio) , especially the wine sacrifices made. Likewise, the head of the sacrificial animal was watered from the bowl before the sacrifice, after the sacrifice the blood of the animal was collected with the patera. However, drinking this blood from the bowl was considered a moral depravity. At least since the second half of the 1st century AD, bowls for the food offering have been given the name patera. Latin sources also report profane uses as a drinking vessel at the table. Particularly splendid forms were intended as a votive and also as an expression of the pietas . It is usually very difficult to distinguish between patera and patella on images. The vessel could be made of different materials, such as clay or metal.
literature
- Andreas Bendlin : Patera, patella. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 , Sp. 397-397.
- Heinz Luschey : The Phiale . Verlag Carl Nieft, Bleicherode 1939.
- Werner Hilgers : Latin names of vessels. Names, function and shape of Roman vessels based on ancient written sources (= Bonner Jahrbücher. Supplements 31, ISSN 0067-4893 ). Rheinland-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1969, esp.p. 242 f. (At the same time: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 1967).
- Arthur Dale Trendall : red-figure vases from southern Italy and Sicily. A manual (= cultural history of the ancient world . Vol. 47). von Zabern, Mainz 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1111-7 , p. 11f.
