Second Series The Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief.-Professor WILLIAM NICKERSON BATES. Associate Editors.-Professor GEORGE H. CHASE, of Harvard University (for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens); Professor ALLAN MARQUAND, of Princeton University (for Mediaeval and Renaissance Archaeology); Professor FRANK G. SPECK, of the University of Pennsylvania (for American Archaeology); and Professor SIDNEY N. Deane, of Smith College. Honorary Editors.-Professor JAMES C. EGBERT, of Columbia University (President of the Institute); Professor EDWARD CAPPS, of Princeton University (Chairman of the Managing Committee of the School at Athens); and Professor JAMES A. MONTGOMERY, of the University of Pennsylvania (Chairman of the Managing Committee of the School in Jerusalem). The JOURNAL OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA was established in 1897. It contains: Archaeological Papers of the Institute, in the fields of American, Christian, Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Classified Bibliography of Archaeological Books. Correspondence; Notes and Notices. The Reports of the Institute, including those of the officers of the Institute and of the Schools in Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and Santa Fé, and of other Committees; the Minutes of the Council; the Proceedings of the General Meetings; the Directory of the Institute, the Schools, and the affiliated Societies; and supplementary miscellaneous matter are published in the BULLETIN OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, issued as an annual volume. The BULLETIN is sent to members on request. The annual subscription for non-members is $1.00. Address, the Archaeológical Institute of America, Columbia University, New York City. Communications for the Editors may be addressed to Professor WILLIAM N. BATES, 220 St. Mark's Square, Philadelphia, Pa. Material for the Department of Archaeological News, Discussions, and Bibliography should be addressed to Professor SIDNEY N. DEANE, Smith College, Northampton, Mass, Subscriptions and advertisements will be received by THE RUMFORD PRESS, Concord, N. H., and by the Archaeological Institute of America, Columbia University, New York City. Issued quarterly ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00 Single numbers, $1.50 For the Publications of the Archaeological Institute of America, see the advertising pages. Institute of America AN ASKOS BY MACRON THANKS to a series of gifts from Mr. Edward Warren, the Museum of Bowdoin College possesses a small but choice collection of Greek vases. Most of these have been described in the annual reports of the College, and many of the red-figured pieces find a place in my Vases in America. One of the more recent acquisitions is the singularly attractive little vase reproduced in Figures 1-3. It measures 6.2 centimetres in height, and 8.2 in diameter. It was bought from a Greek, but the provenience is unknown. My thanks are due to Mr. Warren for allowing me to study the vase while it was still in his possession. The shape is that which modern scholars have agreed to call an askos; what the ancients called the shape we do not know. The askos has a long history: vases constructed on the same general principle as ours are common in Greek lands, and in lands affected by Greek civilization, from a very early period to a very 1 V.A. p. 206. In Hoppin's Handbook of Red-figured Vases, I, p. 370, No. 12a-b, the Bowdoin fragment by the Euergides painter (No. 50 in my list of his works, J.H.S. XXXIII, p. 354) is incorrectly combined with the fragment in Brunswick (Germany), ibid. p. 352, No. 31. American Journal of Archaeology, Second Series. Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, Vol. XXV (1921), No. 4. 325 late. The ascoid shape suggested an animal, a bird, and the potter was often tempted to add a short tail and a dove's or a duck's head. This temptation was resisted by the inventors of the type of askos which is figured by Lau and by Genick among their illustrations of Greek vase-forms2: the constructional motive is not mimetic here, but aesthetic: the lines of the design are wonderfully simple, bold and harmonious. Askoi of the type figured by Lau and Genick become common in Attic pottery of the transitional period between the archaic style and the free, and persist till late in the fourth century. It is to this type, far the commonest, that the Bowdoin vase belongs: it differs somewhat from the canonical shape by its slightly narrower foot and slightly higher breast.3 The Bowdoin vase is earlier than any of the askoi which exhibit the canonical shape, for it is clearly of the ripe archaic period, between 490 and 480 B.C. The earliest canonical askos is E273 in the British Museum, and that is distinctly later than ours. The Bowdoin vase forms a link between the canonical askos and a much earlier specimen-the vase in Orleans published by Mrs. 1 Mayer, Askoi, in Jb. Arch. I. XXII, pp. 207-235; Myres, Cesnola Collection, pp. 15-16. Mayer pays little attention to the Attic askoi, and Myres is not concerned with them. 2 Lau, Die griechischen Vasen, pl. 24, 4: Genick, Griechische Keramik, pl. 32, 4. Summary representations in Furtwängler, Vasensammlung im Antiquarium, pl. 6, No. 242, and Cecil Smith, Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, III, p. 17, fig. 16=Walters, Ancient Pottery, I, p. 200, fig. 62. The following forms of askos are used by Attic potters of the red-figured period: (1) Our type. (2) Like 1, but the middle of the upper surface moulded in imitation of a lid (see No. 7). Examples: Cairo 26214 (Edgar, Greek Vases, pl. 12); Naples (Gabrici, Mon. Ant. XXII, pl. 104, 5); B.M. F34, F120 and 1867.512.46. All fourth century. (3) Like 1, but the body tubular: Naples, Santangelo 226 (Heydemann, Vasensammlung in Neapel, pl. 3, 178). In Oxford 331, a trefoil (oenochoe) spout is substituted for the ordinary one. (4) A taller type, the top flattened, a small cylindrical passage is usually sunk through the body vertically: Furtwängler, Vasensammlung, pl. 16, No. 236; B.M. T511. (5) Like 4, but no passage, and two spouts, one of the usual kind, the other trefoil-shaped: Cat. Coll. Dr. B. et M. C. pl. 24, No. 184. (6) Shape as 1, but the handle, instead of being overarching, is a ring set vertically at the side of the vase: B.M. E766. (7) Like 6, but a circular filling-hole in the upper surface, generally with a sieve bottom: Cab. Méd. 859 (De Ridder, pl. 24); Morin-Jean, Le dessin des animaux en Grèce, p. 128; B.M. F33 and E763. The hole could no doubt be furnished with a lid, which explains 2. (8) Like 7, but the spout shaped as a lion's head. Cat. vent. 11-14 mai 1903, p. 55 (No. 164); Sammlung Vogell, pl. 3, 23; Morin-Jean, op. cit. p. 184; B.M. E74. (9) Vases in the shape of a crab's claw: B.M. 1905.7-10.9 (Gargiulo, Recueil, 4, pl. Massoul and rightly assigned by her to an Ionian fabric.1 The Orleans vase, from the style of the heads which adorn it, can hardly be later than the middle of the sixth century. The shape is heavier, less athletic, than in the Bowdoin askos, but the later shape is obviously derived from the earlier. The lineage of this class of askos can be traced farther back. Vases like the Orleans askos must be descended from an earlier and larger type of vase, an example of which has been found at Naucratis.2 The askos from Naucratis, which is decorated with bands of animals in the style characteristic of eastern Greece-Rhodes and Asia Minorand cannot be later than the earlier part of the seventh century, evidently goes back, in its turn, to the late Mycenaean type represented by a vase from Haliki near Phaleron.3 One of the principal characteristics of the Attic type figured by Lau and Genick is the grand, free span of the handle: in the Orleans vase the handle is smaller in proportion to the body; in the vase from Naucratis and Haliki it is smaller still, and it runs from the neck, not to the farther end, but to the middle of the back. The Attic type makes one think of some bold Gothic arch, compared with the hesitating experiments of earlier builders. The full-spanned handle is found, it is true, in earlier ascoid vases, but chiefly where the body is tubular. 23; Burlington Catalogue 1903, pl. 97, I 68); B.M. E765 (Panofka, Cabinet Pourtalès, pl. 30); B.M. WT63. (10) Vases in the shape of a duck, with black-figured ornamentation; not earlier than the later part of the fifth century: Farmakovski, Arch. Anz. 1909, p. 175, fig. 40, from Olbia; Orsi, Not. Scav. 1913, supplement, p. 8, fig. 6, from Locri; B.M. B662-667. In the British Museum Catalogue (II, pp. 295-6) this group is included among the vases with designs on a white ground; the ground, however, is the red of the clay; white is sometimes used on the head of the duck. The spout of B662 is shaped like the mouth of a squat lecythus; B663 has a trefoil (oenochoe) spout; B664 and 665 an askos spout; in B666 and B667 an askos spout is substituted for the duck's head, the spout thus being at the head and not as in the others at the tail of the duck. (11) Black vases in the shape of a knuckle-bone, with overarching handle twisted and knotted. 1 Massoul, Revue archéologique, 1918, 2, p. 19: height 8 cm., diameter 9 cm. Of somewhat similar shape are the sixth century Ionian askoi from Olbia, Farmakovski, Arch. Anz. 1911, p. 223, fig. 29, and 1912, p. 358, fig. 47. 2B.M. 1888.6-1.462: Naukratis, 2, pl. 5, 1. The lip, and most of the handle are modern; the remains of the handle show that it is correctly restored. 3 * Berlin 43, Furtwängler-Loeschcke, Mykenische Vasen, pl. 18, 127. Height 13 cm. A remoter ancestor is the pre-Mycenaean type illustrated by Wace and Blegen, B.S.A. XXII, pl. 6, 1. 'Delphi, Fouilles de Delphes, 5, p. 11, fig. 39 (sub-Mycenaean); Berlin 304, Boehlau, Jb. Arch. I. III, p. 341, fig. 22 (Boeotian geometric); Louvre A47, Pot |