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The Stone Tripods from Plataea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Extract
Two stone tripods—in fact the only known stone tripods of early times—have for many years been in the Museum of Thebes. They are made of the local poros limestone. Even though they have been exhibited, hitherto they have not been cleaned and are virtually unpublished. Villagers found them by chance in the vicinity of Plataea; in 1899 they were handed over to A. Keramopoulos, who was then conducting excavations at Plataea. Keramopoulos, in the same year, wrote a brief note about them, in which he entirely misunderstood their dating. Karouzos included a paragraph about them in his Guide to the Thebes Museum, accompanied by a photograph of one of them.
The first tripod, Thebes 19, is intact (Plates 43, 44a–c; Fig. 1). There are a few breaks on the feet, and in places the surface of the stone has decayed, forming holes of various sizes. The height of the bowl is greater than its width, and its greatest diameter is at the mouth. As for the lip, its outer half is bevelled, its inner half horizontal. The feet are short, plump, and broad; they taper downwards because their inner surfaces, which begin at the bottom of the bowl, splay outwards. The feet are not strictly vertical, but open out slightly towards their base; they reach up to the rim. Their outer surface is slightly curved, roughly following the curve of the lip. There were no handles. The total height is 0·38 m.; the lip has a diameter of 0·31 m. outside, and 0·22 m. inside. The bevelled surface of the lip, the front surfaces of the feet and the upper half of the bowl's outer surface are covered with incised decoration: the motifs consist of zigzags, simple circles, circles with inscribed cross, and concentric circles, almost all with deep holes in the centre.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1970
References
1 PAE 1899, 55.
2 Karouzos, Ch., Τό Μουσεῖο τῆς ⊖ήβας 17 ff., fig. 12.Google Scholar
3 Willemsen, Die Dreifuβkessel von Olympia.
4 We know for certain that there were tripod utensils in Greece in prehistoric times, and in the Orient from prehistoric times until the sixth century B.C. (H-G. Buchholz, , ‘Steinerne Dreifuβschalen des ägäischen Kulturkreise und ihre Beziehungen zum Osten’, JdI 78 (1963) 1–77)Google Scholar; these could be regarded as the prototypes. Nevertheless their shape is basically different from those published here: all of them are tripod basins rather than cauldrons, having a diameter greater than their height without feet. In the case of our second tripod, there can be no doubt that it imitates bronze; and the first tripod, too, seems to be a tripod cauldron and not a basin, to judge from comparative material (cf. Buchholz, loc. cit. fig. 4). In the decoration, we must accept that two influences are combined: that of stone tripod basins, and of metallic tripod cauldrons. The herring-bone clearly comes from the second, the zigzags from the feet of both types; while the first is probably the source of the system of decoration on the cheeks of the cauldron, and certainly of the circles (cf. Buchholz, loc. cit. figs. 9, 10). However, we must not overlook the fact that the two categories certainly had an influence on each other. Which of the two classes is earlier—if either is earlier—is a question beyond the bounds of the present study.
5 RA 1908 (ii) 190; AJA 1924, 267; Déonna, , Dédale ii, pl. 23;Google ScholarJohansen, , Vases sicyoniens 140. 1;Google Scholar Karouzos, op. cit. 11, figs. 1, 2; Grace, , Archaic Sculpture in Boeotia 52 f., fig. 68.Google Scholar
6 ADelt 16 (1960) Chronika 9, pls. 6–8.
7 AM 3 (1878) 309 ff.; Kastriotis, 
no. 56; Papaspyridi, , Guide du Musée Nationale 22;Google ScholarBuschor, , Frühgriechische Junglinge 32 ff., figs. 37, 38Google Scholar; Richter, Kouroi no. 11.