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Original Use
Re-Use
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Manufacturing
As traces of a fleeting summer season fell upon the ancient city of Canosa in 420 B.C.E., Morkos began his seventeenth day of apprenticeship at the local pottery workshop ran by Kallikrates, a well-known potter. Morkos started his workday early, strolling toward the outer edge of the city, passing boisterous groups of intoxicated men returning home from various symposia. Within twenty minutes time, Morkos arrived at the workshop and greeted his mentor, Panfilo, who was at the clay pools mixing water with a batch of clay to make the thick silt needed to create pottery.
Panfilo had lived in Canosa for most of his life, learning the tools of the trade from his father at a young age. When he first started coming to work with his father, he hated the mundane task of refining the clay: shoveling buckets of what he perceived as dirt into the pool, waiting for it the unusable chunks to settle and the clay silt drain into a smaller pool, and then taking that refined clay and repeating the process. As Morkos entered the workshop, Panfilo was just finishing laying the clay out to dry in the summer sun. Out of the corner of his eye, Morkos saw Kallikrates chastising Elio about his paint job on a column krater, explaining that if Elio wanted to have his own painting style he could create his own workshop.
On this specific day, Morkos was assembling his first kantharos. He had been with this piece of clay since its time in the silt pool. He learned to wedge the clay, stacking chunks of it on top of each other and then compressing it by stepping on and folding it. He then took a wedge of the clay and threw it on the potter’s wheel, just as Panfilo had shown him, shaping each component individually and then leaving them in the cabinet to dry. While Morkos easily shaped the main parts of the kantharos, the handles proved to be more difficult and it took Morkos a day’s work to make two evenly shaped and sized handles. Finally, Morkos was on the last step of his kantharos. Panfilo demonstrated how to use a slip, or wet clay, to attach the foot of the cup to the upper bowl and instructed that Morkos attached the handles. Morkos hatched the ends of the handles to make the bond between the handles and the cup stronger. He then dipped his hands in the clay slip, rubbed the slip on the ends of the handles, and individually attached them to the cup. He had finished his contribution, and now he let the kantharos dry out in the cabinet.
A day later, Elio pulled out the kantharos and prepared it for painting. He traced an image of a woman onto the bowl, adding a necklace and the fancy hairdo that appears in all of the workshop’s designs of women. He then used a specially prepared slip and painted in the background, leaving the woman to be the beautiful red color of the clay. He finished his design with a mole right above the woman’s mouth, his way of showing stylistic flair. Elio placed the kantharos in the kiln. Once the kantharos turned a bright red, about 800º Celsius, Elio ran out back to the kiln, closed all of the vents, and added green wood to it to suck out the oxygen and raise the temperature. This would cause the kantharos to turn black and glossy. Before leaving for the night, Elio opened all of the vents and allowed the kiln to cool, returning the face of the woman to the clay red color, but keeping all of the painted spots black.
When Elio returned the next morning, he went out to the kiln to check on the kantharos, as he had many times before in his two years of working at the workshop. When he gently pulled out the cup, Elio immediately saw that he had misfired, causing the black paint to not fully develop the gloss. Nonetheless, the cup was in mostly good shape. He would try and sell it in the market later in the week for a discounted price.
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Modern day Canosa di Puglia shows many traces of Ancient Greece’s colony in southern Italy. Places like the Hypogeum in Canosa have given archaeologists a wealth of information in regards to the lives of the Ancient Italics and Greeks living in Apulia. Despite the heavy Greek influence that came with the Greeks when they colonized southern Italy around the 7th Century B.C.E., many Apulians stayed connected to their local roots, embracing the customs of their own culture. By the time of the 4th Century B.C.E., the Apulians and Greeks got along well and Apulian art culture, specifically the use of red-figure painting, started to flourish. While the technical skills of the Apulians were not as strong as those from the Attic Peninsula, local Apulian pottery was highly popular in its own market, likely because of the importance of ceremonial objects in graves. In order to keep up with the demand, Apulian painters like the White Saccos Painter created pottery workshops that used a local style of painting and a local shape to produce kantharos like the Red Figure Kantharos Cup on view at Smith College.
The cup was created by the White Saccos Group, a workshop likely located in Canosa based on distribution patterns and its proximity to a river with a clay quarry. The workshop created a series of kantharos, oinochoe, and other types of vessels around 320 B.C.E. that all featured similar designs. The profile of the woman, the saccos on her hair, the angular eye shape, and the crosses on both sides of the woman are all signs that the White Saccos Painter created the cup. However, there are some discrepancies between cups that allude to the idea that the White Saccos Painter wasn’t an individual but rather a workshop. Looking at the Red Figure Kantharos Cup next to Red-Figure Kantharos with Female Head located at the Walters Museum, the similarities in the form of the cup, color palate, and style of the women match, but these are clearly two different women. The woman on the kantharos cup at Smith College features a prominent mole above her mouth and has a long earing hanging down her face. On the other hand, the cup at the Walters Museum has accentuated lips but no mole, and she also has a smaller earring (White Saccos Painter). While the two cups were clearly created in the same style of the White Saccos Painter, these differences demonstrated that there were at least two painters in the workshop, both painting in the same style but showing a sense of individuality in the way they presented their woman. Besides the specific painting style, the use of red-figure painting, a local custom, helps definitively place the cup in the region of Apulia.
The shape of the kantharos also places the cup in the region of Apulia. In the chapter “‘Native’ Vase Shapes in South Italian Red-Figure Pottery”, the author, Fabio Coliviicchi, explains that the shape of the kantharos like the one at Smith College was a rarity in mainland Greece because of its associations with important funerary functions. However, the shape was very similar to a local, popular Apulian cup, and so Apulian potters adapted the Greek kantharos shape for their own (Carpenter 230). When looking at the shape of the Red Figure Kantharos Cup, it is clear that this cup wasn’t meant for high rituals as the embellishments on the handles are uneven and the shape of the foot of the cup isn’t as smooth as one might be for a ritual. However, other kantharoi created by the White Saccos workshop are much more even and well-constructed, alluding to the possibility that an inexperienced potter created the cup in Smith’s collection. These kantharoi created by the workshop were likely made in the way mentioned in the narrative; however, it is not clear what caused the misfiring of the Red Figure Kantharos Cup. Judging by the lack of an entire glaze, and the lack of an entirely black exterior, it is likely that the painter messed up during the second stage of the firing process.
By looking at the maker and process of the Red Figure Kantharos Cup, archaeologists can better understand the relationship between pottery, manufacturing, and the people of Apulia.
Original Use
Elio went to the market once every week to sell the workshop’s ceramics. Located in Canosa, the market attracted patrons from near and far to come and purchase fine Apulian ceramics. Elio set up his ceramics in between his friend’s kitchenware shop and a grain farmer. He had brought a pair of oinochoe, three pyxides, one volute krater, and five kantharoi–including the one he had misfired. Elio chatted with his friend while setting up the ceramics, discussing Elio’s negotiations for his soon-to-be wife, Syntyche. The conversation stopped short as the slaves of wealthy families began to enter the marketplace.
Elio quickly sold his pair of oinochoe and two kantharoi to a slave, likely for use in a symposium. Some patrons from out of town came to look at his local red-figure ceramics, but all in all it was a pretty slow day. Near closing time, a woman in her 20s came to his shop, looking to purchase the volute krater for a funeral. The woman, Piera, had lost her husband and was looking for proper burial ceramics she could use to honor him. Her husband had no other living relatives, leaving his money and property to the widow by default. She was much lower class than any of Elio’s regular customers, as she couldn’t even afford a slave to come to the marketplace for her. Elio explained to the widow that she couldn’t possibly afford the volute krater, and directed her attention to the kantharoi. Wanting to please her husband, she tried to barter for two kantharoi, arguing that she would likely be his last customer of the day and that he hadn’t seemed to sell much compared to other vendors. Elio counter-offered with one kantharos at full price and the misfired kantharos at a discount, and Piera accepted the deal.
With little money left, Piera looked for merchants offering other pieces of misfired pottery, believing that the amount of pottery was likely more important than the quality of the pottery. Her husband was a trader for the city–a meager, often looked down upon, job in which he would help negotiate deals between Canosa and Ruvo, a nearby town known for its olive production and red-figure ceramics. While they certainly weren’t poor, they didn’t make enough money for any luxuries past a basic set of kitchenware. Now that her husband was gone, Piera would have to begin working as a baker as a way to generate income for her and her future child.
Piera managed to make it out of the market with a substantial amount of pottery, certainly enough for a proper burial. In fact, she had accumulated so much pottery that she decided to keep a couple of the lesser quality ceramics for herself, including the kantharos she had purchased from Elio. She liked the fashionable woman painted on both sides of the cup, and despite its improper firing, the cup certainly seemed useable. She decided to bury her husband with the mint-condition kantharos, among others, hoping that the similarity of the figures on the two cups would connect them in the afterlife.
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During the 4th Century B.C.E., Canosa was a popular center for production, trade, and commerce, seen through the large amount pottery found in the city as well as the red-figure workshops found around the ancient city (Carpenter et al. 168). Indigenous people and Greeks commonly used one of the most popular pieces of pottery, the kantharos, for drinking and burial rituals. Many kantharoi have been found around Canosa, like the kantharos on view at Smith College, and archaeologists can gain more insight into the multiple uses of the drinking vessel as well as who used it, an interesting question to look at in the diverse region of Apulia.
While the woman on the kantharos at Smith College has no name, inscription, or information that may help archaeologists uncover her identity, the lack of distinction actually reflects the population of Canosa and Apulia at the time. Apulian painters may have painted vague women on ceramics to reflect the diverse population in Southern Italy. A mix of indigenous peoples and Greeks, making the figures on pottery appear neutral meant they could cross cultures easier, allowing for a diverse group to all relate to a singular, unknown figure (Heuer 70). This appeal to the local consumer culture also comes through when analyzing the distribution of Apulian vessels, which very rarely traveled more than 100 kilometers (Carpenter 36). With red-figure pottery’s popularity in Apulia, it is very likely that the kantharos cup now located at Smith College never left Canosa or its surrounding areas until its recovery in the 1900s.
Even though the kantharos was a fairly common object, the design on the cup may have increased the price, targeting a middle or upper class family. However, because this specific kantharos was misfired, it is likely that its owner may not have been the White Saccos’ target audience. Rather, its owner may have come from a lower class or may have mistreated it when using it or burying it, indicated by the broken handle and chipped rim. This may also simply be because of improper excavation techniques, but it is important to note that other kantharoi attributed to the White Saccos Group have been excavated more successfully. However, it is unsure if the same person or team excavated the other kantharoi and the kantharos at Smith College. Therefore, it seems more likely that the unintended audience mistreated the kantharos, causing breakage in the cup.
Wine culture was popular with the native Apulian crowd starting before Greek colonization in the 8th Century B.C.E. (Carpenter et al. 216). As the Greeks came to Apulia and brought customs such as the symposia with them, some Greek cup shapes became integrated into Apulian society. With its long handles that reach past the top of the cup and its deep bowl, the Type A kantharos lent itself to use in both cultures. Drinking vessels split into two categories: one set was meant for traditional ritual uses, and the other set was adopted for the Greek drinking culture. Because the imagery on the kantharos at Smith College matches other found kantharoi now owned by places like the Walters Museum, it is possible that the kantharos may have been part of a set used at symposia.
Judging by the large quantity of kantharoi found in graves in the Apulian region, the kantharos located at Smith may have been produced as a burial object. According to Robert Garland in Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks, the poor would be buried in a coffin made of sticks because of the scarcity of wood. The body and any other objects would be placed in the grave during the burial by close relatives. Members of the family would then fill the gravesite and place a grave marker in the ground (Garland 178-179). Kantharoi, such as those painted by the White Saccos-Kantharos Group, are often found at Apulian gravesites, implying that they may have had some significance in the burial rituals. For the sake of this narrative, a different possibility is assumed in which the kantharos was kept as a spiritual connection to the dead. While the object shows clear signs of misfiring, the location of the cup’s origin is unknown making it difficult to know if it was perceived as imperfect and thus only fit for burial rituals.
Looking at the racial, socio-economic, and religious diversity of Apulia in the 4th Century helps archaeologists understand the meaning and possible uses of the kantharos located at Smith College. By knowing the conditions in which Apulian people produced and purchased objects like the kantharos, archaeologists can create a more whole picture of Apulian society. The use of the singular kantharos as a drinking vessel, a burial object, or a spiritual connector demonstrates Apulian society’s cultural diversity in the 4th Century.
Re-Use
In her late twenties, Piera was looked down upon by most of her family and the village people because she had yet to bear child. People would often whisper about her lack of fertility, wondering what she did to displease the gods so. However, despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, she decided to raise her child as a single mother. She didn’t have much money as a widow, but she thought she would have enough to properly raise her unborn child.
Every day in anticipation for her child, she would fill her recently purchased kantharos with some watered-down wine as an offering to Artemis, praying for a son to continue her family’s lineage. Soon the day came, and she had a surprisingly easy birth given her age and previous fertility issues. She proudly placed an olive branch on her door, announcing the birth of her son. Piera contemplated what to name him- while generally boys were named after their grandfathers, she felt a pang to name her newborn after her late husband, Aniketos. Upon the tenth day of his life, she pronounced her son’s name as Aniketos.
A bubbly, boisterous bundle of joy, Aniketos looked more and more like his father every day. Piera began to work as a weaver, trying to sell her goods in the market every so often. She would save the money to go toward her future son’s life, hoping that she could continue to afford the middle class lifestyle she had become accustomed to. However, it was hard without her husband’s job, and she couldn’t afford many of the necessities she used to have.
Not long before Aniketos turned one, Piera noticed symptoms of sickness in his change of attitude. His normal mischievous nature had calmed down, and he became seemingly bogged down and drowsy. One early morning Piera woke up feeling rested, which was odd because she recently had been waking up many times to her child’s cries. She turned to Aniketos and found him to be still and not breathing. Piera screeched, awaking the village with her cries over her dead child. Alone once again, she buried her son with her husband and placed the second of the two kantharos she had used to pray for his arrival in the burial. Not too long after, Piera was found dead in her home after the local townspeople reported a smell -perhaps she was reunited with her family in the afterlife.
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Due to water quality and the waste disposal system, children often died in ancient Greece (Garland 95). However, burials in Apulia, even those for children, were often extravagant affairs, as seen from the contents of burials recovered in archaeological digs. While kantharoi were sometimes used in symposia, as suggested in the previously, more often they were used as burial objects. By looking at the symbolism and shape of the kantharoi as well as the locations of other similar objects, it is safe to assume that the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup on view at Smith College was likely used as a funerary object.
Attributed to the White-Saccos Painter because of its white saccos, or ornamental head piece, archaeologists know little about the anonymous woman painted on the kantharos at Smith College. Stylistically, the drawing seems to be more of a cartoon of a woman rather than the more elaborate and realistic drawings one can see on other pieces of pottery. In general, the woman seems mostly unimportant despite taking up a majority of the space on the exterior of the cup, with a representation of the unknown woman on both sides. However, the symbolism of the woman may allude to the function of the kantharos as a funerary object. According to Evy Johanne Håland, author of Rituals of Death and Dying in Modern and Ancient Greece: Writing History from a Female Perspective, women played an important role as mediator between the living and the dead, using laments as a way to connect the afterlife with the living (Håland 489). Through this logic, the woman on the kantharos may represent the connection between the underworld and the earth, solidifying its role as a funerary or burial object. The shape of the kantharos also implies that the cup was mainly used in the context of death. Known as the type A kantharos, the Greek style cup featured high handles, and the shape was similar to a local style of kantharoi. The similarity made it easy for the native Italic people to integrate the imported shape into their society. Commonly found in groups in burials, the Apulian people used the original kantharos and the Greek substitute often in funeral contexts (Carpenter et al. 230). Both the symbolism and the shape clearly demonstrate the function of the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup.
While the original deposition of the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup is unknown, by looking at the final locations of other kantharoi, archaeologists can conclude that the kantharos on view at Smith College was likely found in a grave. An analysis of three tombs in Canosa, where the White-Saccos Painter may have had his workshop, provides insight into the funerary rituals of ancient Apulia. Within these three graves, sets of matching drinking vessels have been buried, with one grave containing fifteen drinking vessels and four round mouthed oinochoai that all share stylistically similar elements (Carpenter et al. 173). These graves also feature many Apulia red-figure pottery pieces, demonstrating the popularity of pieces like the kantharos at Smith College within ancient Apulian society (Carpenter et al. 174). Knowing that the White-Saccos Painter created other pottery pieces, and having a visually similar kantharos on view at the Walters Museum in Baltimore, it is likely that the kantharos at Smith College was a part of a larger funerary set meant for the local Apulian audience to use when performing burial rituals.
The kantharos may have had different functions before its final use as a funeral object, but it is most likely that the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup was used as in a funerary context, as alluded to in an analysis of its symbolism, shape, and the ritual use of other similar objects found in graves. The presence of the woman on the cup and the type A shape of the cup clearly define the kantharos as an object used in burial rituals. Through these elements, it is easier to locate and understand the main function of the kantharos in Apulian society.
Deposition
As per custom, Piera planned to bury her son next to her husband on the family’s small piece of land. However, due to land constraints, she couldn’t give her son his own plot- instead she would bury him in the leftover space of her husband’s tomb. The town on Canosa felt bad for the family, and many relatives and neighbors offered condolences and to help Piera with the rituals surrounding funerals.
Piera had been to funerals for her relatives in recent years and had to plan her husband’s funeral only a couple years ago. Despite the extreme sadness and depression that infested her mind, she had to begin preparing her son for his funeral, as delaying this process could bring her misfortune. Because she had taken so long to bear a child, Piera did not have a good relationship with her late husband’s parents or her own. Only recently had they began to correspond, as word had traveled to her parents that she had borne a son and lost her husband. Needing help to prepare for Aniketos’ funeral, she walked to the outskirts of town, where her parents, Agapenor and Xanthippe, worked on a farm. Piera informed her parents of the misfortune, and they began to grieve, and offered to help with the funeral. Piera’s father filled a large jar with water from their home and the family proceeded to Piera’s home to begin the rituals.
Agapenor left the clean water in front of the home for any visitors that came to grieve, while Xanthippe prepared the body for burial. Neighbors came by to pay their respects over the next couple days, and Piera dug into her husband’s grave and reorganized the items to make space for Aniketos. On the day of the burial, Piera and her parents carefully wrapped Aniketos in a cloth and placed him within the grave along with a set of drinking vessels and his play toys. After they filled in the grave, Piera sprinkled grain over the top of the burial site and they retreated inside to have a feast in remembrance of her son.
Piera’s parents then went home and Piera asked neighbors for clean water to begin the purification process of the home. Alone in her home, Piera couldn’t bear the silence- she missed her son’s laugh and preparing meals for her husband, she contemplated what she had done wrong in her life to have deserved losing so much. All of these thoughts consumed her mind over the next 48 hours, she couldn’t bring herself to eat or drink, and she had cried so much there were no more tears. Piera passed soon passed away due to dehydration, however her neighbors were kind enough to plan a simple burial and placed her to rest with her son and husband.
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Apulia put a lot of emphasis on burial rituals, and while every city had their own nuances within a funeral, many funerals were a mix of local Italic tradition and Greek tradition. No matter the location, people respected the dead and believed that everyone was entitled to a proper burial. While archaeologists do not know much about the specific burial rituals in Apulia, they can analyze the composition of assemblages within graves to understand more about ancient society. Because the deposition and acquisition of the kantharos on view at Smith College is not known, it is safest to assume that it came from a grave. By looking at excavations of graves in Canosa as well as analyzing Greek funerary customs, archaeologists can come closer to understanding the role and deposition of the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup on view at Smith College.
In Canosa, many people buried their family members on their land, combining the two into one space. Many people were also buried with their family members, which excavators can sometimes see based on if the skeleton or items appear to have moved to make room for another person, as is the case for Tomb 1/08 in Canosa (Carpenter et al. 178). These two qualities can inform archaeologists that familial ties mattered in ancient Canosa and that there was a strong connection between the living and the dead seeing as how they co-existed within one another. Tomb 1/08 also shows how graves were often re-used for multiple burials in Canosa. Graves can help piece together the evolution of ancient cultures, and in Canosa specifically they demonstrate the shift toward a social hierarchy over time based on the items found in the assemblage, like spears, that can signal a specific role in the community.
By looking at two sites in Apulia, we can begin to understand how the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup may align with the newly developed social hierarchy. In the book The Italic People of Ancient Apulia, contributor Marissa Corrente looks at the assemblages in Tomb 8/01 and 8/08 in Canosa to learn more about the use of red-figure vases in funerary contexts. Corrente explains that within tomb 8/08, the assemblage was grouped in three parts, with one of these parts having to do with food and drinking funerary rituals. Within this group, excavators found six drinking vessels, among other pieces of pottery (Carpenter et al. 176). When thinking about the kantharos at Smith College and the presence of an almost identical vessel on view at the Walter’s Museum, it is likely that the kantharos was a part of a set created for funerary rituals. Corrente supports this hypothesis by explaining that by around 350 B.C.E., “…the funerary assemblage had become a standardized set: a composite mix of local wares and shapes adopted from the Greek tradition in a repertoire that emphasized communal drinking and feasting,” (Carpenter et al. 177). Through this conclusion, the role of the kantharos as a part of an accessible set meant for any proper burial becomes clear. The assemblages of other graves can help archaeologists determine the final deposition of previously not identifiable objects.
While there is little written regarding Canosa or Apulian funerary customs, based on the knowledge that Apulia mixed local and Greek traditions, archaeologists can make some assumptions about the funerary rituals of the area. As stated in the narrative, funerals in Greece were multi-day affairs revolving around purification and giving the dead a proper resting place. Including a preparation of the dead, a cleansing, a burial, and a feast, funerals were a time to grieve over the dead and to provide them with a chance to move on (Retief and Cilliers 52-56). These same Greek customs likely applied in Apulia, and the role of the kantharos was typically in the burial process as a part of a set that would be placed in the grave. In fact, some of the kantharoi found in graves in Apulia are clearly manufactured only for graves, as there is an entire hole through the bottom of them that renders them useless for drinking. Because the kantharos on view at Smith College has an intact bottom with no intentional hole, there is a possibility that the use of the kantharos was also as a part of a feast, but likely it was just used for the burial.
Even though we don’t know the final deposition of the kantharos, we can make some assumptions based on other assemblages at graves in Canosa and based on Greek funerary rituals. Both of these topics point to the kantharos as a part of a standardized set that had some connection to the feasting and drinking culture of society. Because kantharoi were so heavily produced to be a funerary item in Apulian society, it is likely that the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup on view at Smith College was intended to and was used as a funerary object deposited into a grave as a part of a larger assemblage.
Acquisition
Luca Carbone left his house no earlier than 10 P.M. for work, grabbing his bag of tools that contained his spillone, headlamp, and space for his treasures. He silently exited the house and walked the streets of Canosa toward the ancient hypogeum, an area of the city full of artifacts from ancient Greece. Tonight he had a specific site to visit for a client. Upon reaching the ancient tombs, Luca walked over to a corner of the tombs that he had had the most success with over the months and started digging the spillone into the ground. All too suddenly, he made contact with the air of a grave and dropped the large tool into the pit. Digging with his hands to make the hole larger, Luca felt excited as he used his headlamp to peer into the once undisturbed cave full of treasure. He carefully lowered himself into the pit, paying close attention to the ground so that he wouldn’t fall on anything. He stuffed the bag full of objects including some cups, jars, and a few small pieces of jewelry, and then he shimmied his way out of the grave. Luca had struck luck on his first grave of the night gathering so many treasures that he decided to call it a night early. That night he would get some sleep and wait for the buyer to make the trip down to collect the items and give Luca his money.
Raffaele Boccasini, esteemed arts collector and dealer, made the trip to Canosa once every two months to collect treasures for his market in Rome. He would travel down to Apulia, visiting various cities and picking up goods, making a trip out of the ordeal. Upon collecting his goods, he would carefully transport them back to Rome, where students from the nearby school, art collectors, and tourists could buy his carefully curated selection of gifts. One particular student within this crowd, a young and fresh fellow at the Classics school from America named Albert William Van Buren often came by to chat with Raffaele about his excursions.
No less than three days after Raffaele returned from Apulia, Albert came in and scoured the shop, carefully combing through the pieces, searching for objects to add to his collection. As he chatted with Raffaele about his upcoming trip around the Mediterranean with his mentor, Richard Norton, Albert’s eyes locked on what seemed to be a set of kantharoi along with some kylikes that seemed to match in style. One of the kantharoi was missing its handles, and upon further inquiry Raffaele presented Albert with the handles with the caveat that they would cost extra. A student on a budget, Albert chose to purchase the broken kantharos without the handles along with the three kylikes, saving money on the former to spend on the latter.
After spending some years in Rome and the surrounding area, collecting artifacts and cataloging archaeological finds, Albert returned stateside for a position at his alma mater, Yale. Bringing his collection of prizes with him, he had hoped to advance in the academic ranks, but that plan flew out the window when he was offered a position back in Rome. He couldn’t continue bringing his objects back and forth across the Atlantic, and so he left a lot of his personal collection with Yale in a deposit that he sold in 1925 for $100 to Professor F. Warren Wright at Smith College, where the kantharos lives on display in the library today.
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Over 12,000 Apulian vases known today have no provenance, mostly coming from gravesites dug up by tombaroli, or gravediggers (Brodie et al. 27). While purchasing objects without a provenance is generally frowned upon in today’s society, many antiquities now owned by collectors lack a provenance or a known found location. Through looking at the journal of Albert William Van Buran, we can trace the acquisition of many of the objects now on view at Smith College, including the Red-Figure Kantharos Cup. However, archaeologists still don’t know how the kantharos was uncovered, or how it got to Rome, the location where Van Buran cataloged the object. Knowing the history of looting that has occurred in Italy along with the journal Van Buran kept, archaeologists can piece together the route that the red-figure kantharos may have taken to end up at Smith College.
According to Van Buran’s journal, he purchased the kantharos along with three kylikes in Rome during the December of 1904, a little less than five years before Italy formally banned looting and any unauthorized digging (Van Buran 41-43; Rose-Greenland 571). Before and after this declaration, gravediggers continued their line of work, as evidenced in the large amount of unprovenanced vases identified from Apulia. In recent years Italy has gone on a quest to reclaim unprovenanced and stolen items from popular museums like the Getty and the Met, however these objects barely make a dent in the large amount of artifacts stolen from Italy. When thinking about the kantharos on view at Smith College in the context of the large and long history of looting in Italy, we can fill in the gaps on how the cup likely made it out of the ground. A funerary object, the kantharos and the kylikes all were likely bundled as a part of a funerary set in the hypogeum, an underground burial “city” of sorts in modern day Canosa. Given the presence of the hypogeum as well as its Roman and medieval archaeological sites, Canosa probably attracted many looters looking for treasures. Looting also seems like it may have been a popular job of sorts based on the political uneasiness of Italy at the turn of the 20th Century. A very new country, the unification of Italy had hoped to end poverty rampant in the agricultural and not as developed southern part (“Life in Italy from 1900 to 1940.”). However, the South’s poverty rate remained high, and so many people living in Apulia may have turned to looting as a way to escape poverty and get some money, giving clear motive for how and why the kantharos may have been found and sold.
While it can be easily understood how the kantharos resurfaced from its intended resting place, it is harder to piece together how and why the piece may have traveled to Rome. Given the weak nature of Italy around 1900 and the lack of wealth in Rome and the South, it isn’t likely that there was any easy means for transporting goods. Despite the difficulty of transportation, Rome housed the American School in Classical Studies, making the city important for archaeologists. Given this market, looters may have sold their goods in the city or the goods may have been purchased by a dealer who would then sell the artifacts to scholars such as Van Buran in Rome. Van Buran may have been attracted to the kantharos and kylikes because they looked to be a part of a set, given that they are all described in his journal as Italo-Greek red-figure objects (Van Buran 41-43). Once Van Buran purchases the objects, the provenance becomes clearer, and archaeologists can easily track the kantharos as it travels with Van Buran from Rome to Yale and as it changes ownership from Van Buran to Professor F. Warren Wright of Smith College in 1925, marking the end of the kantharos’ journey (Geffcken 46).
As it stands, the kantharos sits with other pieces from the original collection in the Caverno Room in Neilson Library, an intimate space with artifacts organized by period. This collection of objects ranges from fragments of pottery to large kraters, creating a good group of research objects for educational purposes. However, few students know of the permanent exhibit because of its hidden location in the library. Soon the kantharos’ journey will continue on as Nielson begins its renovations and the display of the kantharos will change. As we look forward, we can hope that the objects and their histories can be proudly displayed within the new Nielson, allowing students to create their own stories of the kantharos.
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