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Another Eleusinian Kernos from Laureion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

J. Ellis Jones
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Extract

It is the aim of this note to publish, as soon as possible after its discovery, a single kernos found in the Laureion. The significance of the piece is that it is another example of an uncommon type of pot recently studied and thought to be in effect confined, in Greece, to Eleusis and Athens— apart from one lone stray also found somewhere in that same Laureion district. A further interest is that both Laureion kernoi came from mining sites, but whereas the first was a surface find from a slag heap, the new kernos was found in the course of excavations, in a closed archaeological context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 77 , November 1982 , pp. 191 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1982

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References

1 I am grateful to the Chairman and Committee of the British School at Athens for permission to publish this note on the Agrileza kernos before the appearance of the detailed archaeological reports, and to the Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for permission to include a notice of the first kernos found from the Laureion, that now kept in the American School collection.

2 I discovered too late the article by Brommer, F. in AA 1980, 544–9Google Scholar entitled ‘Plemochoe’ which proposes a different name for this last plain form of the pot. Brommer discusses previous identifications put forward for the pot form named plemochoe, rejects several, and argues, convincingly I think, that the shape which Pollitt calls the ‘Eleusinian kernos’particularly his ‘plain kernos’, should rather be termed plemochoe (in this, reviving Beule's proposal of 1858); but he accepts that kernos is apt and correct for a pot with attached kotyliskoi. Both Brommer and Pollitt base their identifications largely on verbal descriptions by Athenaeus and others of kernos and plemochoe. For Brommer's view, Athenaeus'explicit association of plemochoe with Eleusinian rites (which accords so well with the mainly ‘Eleusinian’contexts of the archaeological examples under discussion) and his mention of its spinning-top shape seem strong arguments. On the other hand, Pollitt's argument seems mildly perverse: he uses Athenaeus'description of kernoi as ritual vessels with attached cuplets to identify certain globular pots with kotyliskoi as kernoi, then tends to reject some more open dishes with quite practical kotyliskoi (such as those illustrated in his pl. 71) from his class of true ritual kernoi, while extending the name to globular pots with no trace of kotyliskoi at all. This is not the place to argue the point fully, but I am inclined to think that the basic simple globular pot is Aplemochoe and that what we have in the form with attached kotyliskoi, whether of utilizable or of rudimentary or even token size, is really a hybrid between plain plemochoe and a kernos, developed within the localized Eleusinian cult of Attica and perhaps within a limited period of time also; the term kernos might certainly cover these, just as it would those more open dishes which Pollitt rejects. As kernoi and plemochoai were both ritual vessels, it would not be so surprising if a hybrid form had been developed. As for terms, ancient usage itself was probably not exact or uniform (Athenaeus mentions in passing that some called the plemochoe itself a kotyliskos). Nor are ancient descriptions themselves necessarily first-hand or complete (neither Athenaeus nor any other author cited mentions those leafy sprigs shown in representations of the pot, springs perhaps fixed in the holes in the flange of the pot, whereas modern commentators have made much play with these).

Though inclined to accept Brommer's identification of Pollitt's ‘plain kernos’ as basically a plemochoe, here (at the expense of appearing mildly perverse myself) I have retained the use of ‘kernos’ in the title and body of this article so as not to lose the thread of connection between the pots described as ‘Eleusinian kernoi’ from Eleusis, the Athenian Agora, and the Laureion and the new example of the shape from Agrileza now published. Here it is the form, not the name of the vessel that is important.

3 Hesperia 48 (1979) 227; pl. 72a illustrates the point.

4 Ibid. 226 n. 17.

5 Ibid. 228. An Eleusis example is illustrated by D. Philios in AE 1885, pl. 9 no. 6; cf. Mylonas, G. E., Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (1961) fig. 87.Google Scholar

6 Hesperia 48 (1979) 229. Pollitt's n. 22 does also refer to a drawing in a book published in 1913 of a kernos in a private collection in Dresden, ‘said to have come from Athens’. But note that Brommer in his article referred to in n. 2 above mentions some other examples of the pot, found in several graves in the Kerameikos Cemetery.

7 Found on 8 Aug. 1979 and restored by my son Rhodri on 15 Aug.; deposited at Brauron Museum, along with other Agrileza finds, on 18 Sept. 1979. Drawn and photographed on 25 Aug. 1980 at Brauron, where the kernos is kept and (temporarily) catalogued as AGR 79, Box 3, bag 28, item no. 88. The photograph of the kernos in PLATE 6 was taken by my friend and colleague Mr. L. H. Sackett in 1979.

8 I should like to express my gratitude to Professor Eugene Vanderpool Sr. for the opportunity to examine ASP 54 in July 1980; and to M. McClellan, secretary of the American School, for the opportunity to re-examine the pot and consult its catalogue entry in Sept. 1981; to Professor H. Immerwahr, Director of the American School for permission to publish a description and illustrations of the pot; and in particular to my friend and colleague Miss Penelope Mountjoy of the British School for the drawing of ASP 54 included in FIG. 1.

9 Cf. Hesperia 48 (1979) 227, with pl. 72a for the range of size, as represented by seven Agora examples. If inserted into that series, the Agrileza kernos would take third place as regards its height (0·124), between I 1 (0·145) and I 2 (0·103), but as regards its width at the flange (0·196) it ranks equal to the very large but incomplete kernos at the head of that series, XXX 1 (0·195). Kernos ASP 54 is certainly smaller, but would come fourth as regards height (0·096), and is certainly taller than the general run of larger Agora examples (0·093–0·080).

10 Ibid. pl. 70a, showing three pierced pedestal bases; ibid. 213 cites 11 pierced bases among 20 uncatalogued vessels recorded from deposit T 22. 2 (group II).

11 Ibid. 214, II 13 (P. 12420), preserving four holes, one at each handle and one on each side between them; also p. 216, IV 1 (P 11809) a large vessel (d. at flange 0·203) preserving two holes, one at a handle and another about 90° away; and V 1 (P 9493), another wide example (d. at flange 0·19) with four holes; and again p. 222, XXXVII 1 (P 9683), yet another large kernos (d. at flange 0·181) with three holes preserved in the flange (at handles and between) and also a pierced foot (pl. 70b).

12 Ibid. 227 8.

13 Ibid. 225–6.

14 The context as described by Pollitt on p. 228 (as quoted above) does not make it certain if the chance find was made at an ancient (or modern) slag-heap outside a mine near the town of Laureion, somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Thorikos, or up in the Laureion hills where John Young had done so much exploration. Enquiries directed to Professor Vanderpool Sr. and, at his suggestion, to Professor Merle Langdon did not yield any further information on that point. Pollitt's remarks about the date of discovery and the provenance of Young's kernos may have come directly from Professor James McCredie, former Director of the American School, whom he thanks for information about the vase. But the catalogue card for ASP 54 in the American School collection records no date of discovery and no more than ‘Found at Laureion by John Young’ as regards provenance. The card itself may well be an incomplete record for it seems to describe the pot as it was at some stage before repair; viz. as ‘⅔ preserved’ and as ‘Two-handled kernos (one handle missing)’, whereas the pot as now to be seen is complete but for a short length of its rim. However, Pollitt's own description of the pot itself (in his n. 21) is otherwise incorrect, involving an error perhaps in transcription: the catalogue card reads: ‘H. 0·096. D. rim 0·103. D. base 0·064. D. at flange 0·142’. But Pollitt's n. 21 reads: ‘H. 0096; Diam. at rim 0·064, at flange 0·103 m’.

15 Archaeol. Reports 24 (1977) 13–115; 25 (1978) 5–6; 26 (1979) 17–19.

16 Hesperia 48 (1949) 226–7.

17 That is, if one accepts Pollitt's conclusion (p. 231) that ‘only for the Eleusinian kernoi can one be reasonably certain of the vessel's religious functions’.

18 Demeter is said to have first landed at Thorikos on her way from Crete to Eleusis, and the Doric Temple located in the alluvial plain at the foot of the Velatouri hill (ancient Thorikos), near the ancient shore-line, has been recognized as the temple of Demeter; cf. Mussche, H. F., Thorikos: A Guide to the Excavations (1974) 11, 45.Google Scholar However, so far no kernoi have been recognized in the sherd material from the Belgian excavations at Thorikos between 1963 and 1979, according to verbal information from Professor Mussche and Dr. P. Spitaels of the Belgian Archaeological Mission. Admittedly these excavations lie some distance uphill from the temple site which would have occupied the lowest spur of rock reaching down to the shore, and none of the soundings made so far at the temple site have reached below the level of alluvial accretions.

19 Hesperia 48 (1979) 206.

20 IG II2 1582, 1. 94; 1587, 11. 3, 9.

21 Hesperia 19 (1950) 189–312, ‘The Leases of the Laurion Mines’, especially 193 and 306–8 where names of mines are discussed and listed; also Hesperia 26 (1957) 1–23, ‘More Fragments of Mining Leases from the Athenian Agora’, especially 22–3 for names of mines.

22 Conophagos, C. E., Le Laurium antique (Athens 1980)Google Scholar illustrates the new find in his frontispiece and on p. 381; and the inscription Simos katelabe Askalepiakon is published and discussed on pp. 388–9.

23 Ibid. 389 for another, fragmentary inscription (restored as -oioi anethesan/Dii O] lump[io) from another washery complex at Soureza, and this one clearly implies a votive slab dedicated by a group of men to Olympian Zeus. Recurrent ceremonies, if any, might not have been more regular or frequent than (to take a modern parallel) those annual saint's day festivals which are today the only congregational services at some of the small isolated country churches of Greece; in such places, the only other manifestations of piety may be the votive plaques or the lit candles of the occasional visitor.

24 IG i2 778, 784–8; AJA 7 (1903) 289ff.; Jeffrey, L. H, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (1961) 319, 323.Google Scholar

25 Greece and Rome 2 8 (1961) 20 fig. 1 for schematic plan and pl. ii; 14 (1967) fig. 4; BSA 63 (1968) 58a, b; Pragmateiai tes Akademias Athenon 29 no. 1 (1970) figs. 1–7 for plan, reconstruction, and photographs; L'Antiquié classique 45 (1976) 167 (plan), 171 (reconstruction).

26 Conophagos's plan and photographs of the washery in his article for the Transactions of the Athenian Academy (see previous note, esp. figs. 1, 4, 7) show the line of the drain and its opening in the side of the rebaling tank.

27 Conophagos, C. E., Le Laurium antique (Athens 1980), 375–7Google Scholar, with fig. 17–1 showing a general plan of the Soureza site on which the washery cleared in 1940 is marked as II2.