Collection online
cup
-
Object type
Museum number
1888,0601.496.a-c
-
Description
Two pairs of joining sherds joined with plaster (including 1924,1201.178) of a Chian Wild Goat Style pottery phallus cup; most of back missing; white slip; interior: glazed streaky black save for glans and lower shaft; exterior, from top: two dilute lines; modelled vulva, with brown dots, flanked by frieze of goats to right (rump of one to right, most of one to left); rising and corner triangles, swastika and dot rosette as filling ornament; underneath pudenda, ridge running down length of phallus, decorated with broken maeander and short horizontal strokes; below goat frieze, alternating black and white tongues, then key maeander between pairs of lines; glans in added red with eye on either side and dot band around periphery.
-
Producer name
-
School/style
-
Culture/period
-
Date
- 625BC-600BC
-
Production place
- Made in: Chios
- (Europe,Greece,Chios)
- Made in: Chios
-
Findspot
- Excavated/Findspot: Naukratis
- (Africa,Egypt,Lower Egypt,Nile Delta,Naukratis)
- Excavated/Findspot: Naukratis
-
Materials
-
Technique
-
Dimensions
- Height: 14.6 centimetres
- Width: 6.8 centimetres
- Thickness: 0.4 centimetres
-
Curator's comments
Lemos describes the sherd as part of the Group of the Aphrodite Bowl, rather than as by the painter of the bowl, because the sherd displays a greater amount of variety in the filling ornaments, albeit similar to those on the Aphrodite Bowl (Lemos 1991, 74-5). The later addition of British Museum 1924,1201.178 to the rest of the phallus cup led Williams to describe the vessel as belonging to one of the mature works of the Painter of the Aphrodite Bowl (Williams 2006a, 128).
The sherd 496c joins British Museum 1924,1201.178.
The shape of the vessel suggests that the cup was probably a dedication to Aphrodite.
For a discussion of the shape, see Williams, 2006a, pp. 127-8.
The sherd is also published in Bergeron, M. forthcoming, ‘Pots and People: Greek trade and votive rituals at Naukratis’, in L. Hulin (ed.), Heracleion in Context: The Maritime Economy of the Egyptian Late Period, Oxford.
-
Bibliography
-
Location
Not on display
-
Subjects
-
Acquisition name
-
Acquisition date
1888
-
Acquisition notes
Excavated 1885-1886.
-
Department
Greek & Roman Antiquities
-
Registration number
1888,0601.496.a-c
-
Joined objects
Feedback
If you’ve noticed a mistake or have any further information about this object, please email: collectiondatabase@britishmuseum.org
View open data for this object with SPARQL endpoint
Object reference number: GAA76690
British Museum collection data is also available in the W3C open data standard, RDF, allowing it to join and relate to a growing body of linked data published by organisations around the world.
Support the Museum:
donate online
The Museum makes its collection database available to be used by scholars around the world. Donations will help support curatorial, documentation and digitisation projects.
About the database
The British Museum collection database is a work in progress. New records, updates and images are added every week.
Supporters
Work on this database is supported by a range of sponsors, donors and volunteers.
