You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search. I thank Stephan Faust Hamburg for intensive discussions in front of the vases and his suggestions on the English translation. These are matched by only 22 vessels from South Italy: 20 from Apulia, two from Campania. One calyx krater and ten volute kraters show multi-figured images 2. Because of the high quality of theses pieces as regards painting, composition and artistic inventions these objects provide a new perspective on the development of multi-figured representations and the reading of the gigantomachy and their visual language in South Italian vase-painting in the second half of the 4th century BC.
Stylistically, they can be attributed to the Darius Painter and must be dated to the period around β BC. He assigned the fragments to three vessels of monumental size: two volute kraters and one lekythos. As part of the work on the CVA the shards were examined once again in the years to This led to some corrections of the identifications stated by Schauenburg and Ioannitis and to an extensive rearrangement. In contrast, five monumental vases can now be distinguished: three volute kraters and two lekythoi.
In order to get a precise idea of the shape, the composition, as well as the arrangement of the figures, and at least an idea of the visual language of the images it was therefore necessary to reconstruct the vases. In an article concerning the development, similarities and differences of Athenian and Apulian gigantomachies the present author mentioned the volute crater and the fragment depicting another gigantomachy in Foot, parts of the body on side A, on the handle zone AβB and of the lower body, neck on side A and lid, the two handles and three swan finials on the shoulder are lost.
The additional colors are in many places completely rubbed or chipped off; some traces have remained, however. Body and neck measure 42,2 cm in diameter, and the extant height of the fragmented crater is now c.
Thus, the original height can be reconstructed to c. The figures are between 10 to 14 cm, the riders and chariots up to 18 cm high. On side A three Erotes can still be recognized. A little Eros on the left holds a bowl and sacrifices at a thymiaterion. This is unique among the South Italian gigantomachies, and there are not many examples in Athenian vase-painting either. On the vessel in Hamburg 34 deities and giants are arranged in 18 fighting groups.
