Red figure krater (wine mixing bowl) depicting a flute player and a discus thrower
On the one side, a comast is depicted, a young man participating in a comos, a happy Dionysiac festival with music and dancing, playing the double flute (aulos). He wears a short cloak hanging over his shoulders that leaves the front of his body uncovered.
The sound of the double aulos by professionals, with the flutes fixed firmly in the mouth using leather straps (phorbeia), often accompanied the exercise in the palaistra as well as the games, especially the javelin and discus throws and the long jump of the ancient pentathlon. It was considered to give rhythm and enhance the effort of the athletes leading them to better performance.
The other side shows a discobolos, a discus thrower exercising or weighing the disc before throwing.
The discus in the games of antiquity was not a separate sport, but belonged to the complex sport of pentathlon, which also included the competitions of the stadium (speed race of 600 feet -192.28 meters in Olympia), javelin, long jump and wrestling.
Discs of copper alloy, marble or lead with a diameter ranging from 16 to 34 cm., and of a weight from 1.25 to 2.5 kg. have been found. Some of them were votive offerings of athletes, dedicated to the great sanctuaries.
- Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens
- Athenian Agora Museum, inv. n. P 10578
- Ca 490 – 480 BC
- H. 0.395 m. Diam. 0.322 m.
- Clay
- Provenance: Athenian Agora excavations
Bibliography
- Moore, Mary, B. (1997). Attic Red-Figured and White-Ground Pottery. The Athenian Agora, Vol. 30, pp. iii–419, (no. 190, pl. 28), The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
- Neils, J. & Stephen, V. Tracy, (2003). The Games at Athens, Vol. 25, Excavations of the Athenian Agora: Picture book, p. 10, fig. 16, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
- Vergara-Cerqueira., F. (2016). To march in phalanx, to jump with weights, to knead the bread, to tread the grapes. What is the aulos for?, pp.187-205, Archimède: archéologie et histoire ancienne, UMR7044 - Archimède: Université de Strasbourg.
