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JOURNAL OF GLASS STUDIES

VOLUME 53 2011

Copyright © 2011 by The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY 14830-2253

Pavlos Triantafyllidis

A Unique Glass Psykter from Lithovouni in Aetolia, Greece

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Prophetes Elias. Two skeletons of young people were also found inside the tomb, along with some valuable objects of gold, silver, and ceram-ics. These objects, along with the glass vases, at-tested to the high social status and wealth of the deceased. The grave goods were placed in lux-ury utensils, such as a silver calyx with a pointed base and gilded decoration (Fig. 8), dat ing to the early third century B.C.,3 and what were probably small situlae (buckets) or amphoriskoi (fragments of two arched, movable silver han-dles were found).4

The toiletry kit found in the tomb contained several items of gold jewelry, including a pair of earrings decorated with Eros5 and a necklace of spherical beads and thin strands of gold (Fig. 9),6 two pairs of gold patches, two circular me-dallions with engraved portraits (Fig. 10), and a pair of oval brooches with a thunderbolt in

IN 1976, two extremely rare late classical glass vessels were discovered in an undisturbed burial in Aetolia in western Greece. These

ves sels, made in the late fourth century B.C., were found in a rescue excavation during the construction of a road at Keramidaki, near the village of Lithovouni (Fig. 1). The excavation re-vealed a cemetery of the ancient Aetolian city of Akrae (Ἂκραι) consisting of 69 cist graves made of local stone, dating from the fifth to mid-third centuries B.C.1

These colorless glass vessels (Figs. 2–7; Ap-pendix, nos. 1–4) consist of a three-part cylin-drical container that has been identified as a psykter (Figs. 2–5; Appendix, nos. 1–3) and one shallow bowl (Figs. 6 and 7; Appendix, no. 4). They were placed as grave goods in Tomb 502 of the cemetery, which is located south of Li-tho vouni, at the foot of the hill known as the

A Unique Glass Psykter from Lithovouni in Aetolia, Greece

Pavlos Triantafyllidis

Acknowledgments. I thank Dr. Photeini Zapheiropoulou, emer itus ephor of antiquities and excavator of the classical and Hellenistic cemetery at Lithovouni, for permission to publish the glass vessels; and Maria Gatsi-Stavropoulou, ephor of antiqui-ties, and Georgios Stamatis, archaeologist, in the 26th Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities, as well as Dr. Anasta-sia Georgiadou, archaeologist in the 17th Ephorate of Prehis-torical and Classical Antiquities, for their kind help and support of my study.

1. For the preliminary excavation report of the cemetery, see Photeini Zapheiropoulou, “Akrae,” Archaiologikon Deltion, v. 31, B1, Chronicle, 1976, p. 172 (in Greek). See also Photeini Zapheiropoulou and Anastasia Georgiadou, Lithovouni Makry- neias, Thessalonike: University Studio Press, 2007, pp. 8–9 (in Greek); and idem, Lithovouni Makryneias: The Classical and Hellenistic Cemetery and the Finds from a Mycenaean Tomb, Thessalonike: University Studio Press, 2010, pp. 9–15 (in Greek; English summary, pp. 131–134).

2. Photeini Zapheiropoulou, “Akrae in Trichonitis: Early Hel lenistic Grave,” ST Scientific Meeting for the Hellenistic Pottery, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 2004, pp. 683–686 (in Greek); Zapheiropoulou and Georgiadou, Lithovouni

Makryneias [note 1], p. 9; idem, Lithovouni Makryneias: The Classical and Hellenistic Cemetery [note 1], pp. 13 and 53–56.

3. For parallels, see Donald Emrys Strong, Greek and Roman Gold and Silver Plate, London: Methuen, 1966, p. 101, pl. 23b; and Zophia Halina Archibald, “Thracian Interpretations of Greek and Oriental Elements in Fourth-Century Metalwork,” in Brian Francis Cook, The Rogozen Treasure: Papers of the Anglo-Bulgarian Conference, 12 March 1987, London: British Museum Publications, 1989, pp. 14–15, fig. 1B,f.

4. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1238).5. For the type, see 6000 Years Tradition: The Hellenic Jewel-

lery, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 1997, p. 122, nos. 114 and 115 (Pieria, early third century B.C.; in Greek); and Monica M. Jackson, Hellenistic Gold Eros Jewellery: Technique, Style and Chronology, BAR International Series, no. 1510, Ox-ford, U.K.: Archaeopress, 2006, p. 192, no. 15, pl. 23c (Taras, late fourth century B.C.).

6. For late classical gold necklaces, see Aikaterini Despoini, Greek Art: Ancient Gold Jewellery, Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon, 1996, pp. 244–245, no. 125 (Avdira, late fourth century B.C.; in Greek).

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FIG. 1. Map of Aetolia, showing site of Lithovouni. (Map: Georgios Stamatis)

FIG. 2. Glass psykter. OH. 11.6 cm. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1267). (Photo: Hans Dieter Morche)

FIG. 3. Drawing of glass psykter. Scale 1:2. (Drawing: Manolia Skouloudi)

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FIG. 4. Three parts of glass psykter: inner cup ( left; H. 9.1 cm), spool-shaped container (center; H. 9.6 cm), and lid (right; H. 1.6 cm, D. 10.2 cm). (Photo: Hans Dieter Morche)

FIG. 5. Drawings of parts of glass psykter shown in Figure 4. Scale 1:2. (Drawing: Manolia Skouloudi)

FIG. 6. Shallow glass bowl. H. 1.8 cm, D. (rim) 8.4 cm. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1268). (Photo: Georgios Stamatis)

FIG. 7. Drawing of bowl shown in Figure 6. Scale 1:1. (Drawing: Sophia Kampani)

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FIG. 8. Silver calyx. H. 9.7 cm. Archaeolog-ical Muse um of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1269). (Photo: Hans Die ter Morche)

FIG. 9. Gold necklace with spherical beads and pair of gold earrings with Eros decoration. L. 40.1 cm. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. nos. M 1133

and M 1232). (Photo: Hans Dieter Morche)

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relief (Fig. 11).7 Among the silver objects in the toiletry kit were five rings8 and two miniature silver shields.9 There were also some bronze items, such as the disk of a folded mirror of the late fourth century B.C.,10 three small rings,11 and five nails that probably were part of the coffin. Another small find from the tomb that is of particular interest is a silver mask of Silenus with gilded ivy leaves (Fig. 12), which probably served as the decorative top of the handle of a vessel or of some small piece of furniture.12 A silver coin, a Phokis triovolon (Fig. 13) dating to 480–421 B.C., was also deposited in the grave; it seems to have been a precious heirloom.13 These offerings suggest that the burial took place in the late fourth or early third century B.C.

Four intact cast glass vessels were found at the foot of the first skeleton in the left corner of the grave. Three of them are parts of a spool-shaped container: (1) a cylindrical vessel with a

FIG. 10. Pair of gold medallions. D. 3.1 cm. Archaeological Muse-um of Agrinion (inv. nos. M 1132 and M 1231). (Photo: Hans Dieter Morche)

FIG. 11. Gold oval brooch with cabochon-cut gemstone and thun-der bolt in relief (one of a pair). L. 3.7 cm, W. 2.1 cm. Archaeo-logical Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1131). (Photo: Hans Dieter Morche)

7. For parallels, see Herbert Hoffmann and Patricia F. David-son, Greek Gold: Jewelry from the Age of Alexander, Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1965, p. 196, no. 74 (Melos island, third century B.C.).

8. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. nos. M 1224, M 1225, M 1230, M 1234, and M 1239).

9. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. nos. M 1237 and M 1237a). See Zapheiropoulou and Georgiadou, Litho-vouni Makryneias: The Classical and Hellenistic Cemetery [note 1], p. 82.

10. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1242). For parallels, see Melpo Pologiorgi, “Bronze Mirrors from Sa-lamina,” Archaiologike Ephemeris, v. 146, 2007, pp. 147–192, esp. pp. 172–179, figs. 27, 30, and 31 (in Greek).

11. Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1265). The same number was assigned to the five bronze nails.

12. For the type of Silenus mask as the decorative top of ves-sel handles during the late fourth and early third centuries B.C., see Michael Pfrommer, “Italien-Makedonien-Kleinasien,” Jahr-buch des Deutschen Archäologisches Instituts, v. 98, 1983, pp. 254–263, esp. pp. 254–255, fig. 12 (Dherveni, Thessalonike), and pp. 258–259, fig. 22 (silver situla, Thessaly); for the use of the mask as a decorative element on other small objects (e.g., pieces of furniture), see Zapheiropoulou and Georgiadou, Litho-vouni Makryneias: The Classical and Hellenistic Cemetery [note 1], p. 82.

13. Zapheiropoulou [note 2], p. 685.

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protruding flat base (Figs. 4 and 5; Appendix, no. 2); (2) a discoid, nearly flat lid with vertical walls (Figs. 3–5; Appendix, no. 1); and (3) a pouch-shaped cup with a protruding horizontal collar at the base of the rounded rim (Figs. 4 and 5; Appendix, no. 3). The cup was inside the cy-lindrical container, suspended by its flat rim. The flat lid was placed on the upper surface of the collar of the inner glass cup so that no gaps would be created at the contact points of the spool-shaped vessel. This special set of three glass objects, which functioned as one vessel, is

unique in pre-Roman glassmaking. This manner of adjusting a smaller, pouch-shaped cup in the interior of a larger cylindrical vase, probably in order to preserve its valuable contents, leaves no doubt that this multipart object functioned as a psykter,14 a luxury vessel that was commonly used among the Greeks in summer symposiums (drinking parties) for cooling wine.

In this glass psykter (Figs. 2 and 3), the pouch-shaped cup would have served as the inner ves-sel, with a capacity of up to about 147 milli-liters,15 in which the precious liquid, either wine or a perishable medicament, may have been stored. The liquid may have been kept cold by the use of chilled water (or hail, snow, or ice) that could have been stored initially in ψυχεῖα (icehouses);16 the cold material would have been placed inside the space between the inner cup and the outer cylindrical vessel, which has a ca-pacity of up to about 206 milliliters. The glass would have kept the stored substance cold for

FIG. 12. Silver mask of Silenus. H. 2.1 cm. Archaeo-logical Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1236). (Pho-to: Hans Dieter Morche)

FIG. 13. Silver coin, Phokis triovolon. D. 1.3 cm. Ar-chaeological Museum of Agrinion (inv. no. M 1233). (Photo: Spyros Tsavdaroglou)

14. A psykter is a cooler (from psycho, “I cool”). See Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 2nd ed., Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1951, col. 2026, s.v. “ψύχω” and “ψυκτήρ.” For the shape of the psykter, see Gisela Marie Augusta Richter and Marjorie Josephine Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1935, p. 12, figs. 87–89; Stella Drougou, Der attische Psykter, Beiträge zur Archäologie, no. 9, Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1975; Max G. Kanowski, Containers of Clas-sical Greece: A Handbook of Shapes, St. Lucia, Queensland, and New York: University of Queensland Press, 1984, pp. 123–125; and Klaus Vierneisel and Bert Kaeser, Kunst der Schale: Kultur des Trinkens, Munich: Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, 1990, pp. 251–264.

15. Capacities were calculated by Joseph Spartalis, survey engineer of the 22nd Archaeological Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities.

16. For more on icehouses, in the form of a well or a pit, for the preservation of ice, see Athenaeus: The Learned Ban-queters, ed. and trans. S. Douglas Olson, Loeb Classical Li-brary, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 2006, 3.123d: “Semus of Delos in Book II of his History of the Island . . . says that on the island of Cimolus during the summer cooling-pits are prepared, in which they de-posit jars full of warm water; when they take them out they are the same temperature as snow,” and 3.124c: “The excellent Xenophon as well shows familiarity with the use of snow in drinking in his Memorabilia (2.1.30). Chares of Mitylene in his Histories of Alexander . . . also tells us how to preserve snow, when he describes the siege of the Indian city of Petra and says that Alexander dug 30 cooling pits, which he filled with snow and then threw oak branches on top.”

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longer periods; moreover, placing the psykter in an underground cellar17 would have maintained an even lower temperature.

The psykter shape, with and without handles, was very commonly used in the making of pot-tery in the later black-figure period; it reached its zenith during the red-figure period and lasted until the appearance of black-glazed pottery (i.e., from the late sixth to mid-fifth centuries B.C.). It was employed together with the krater (Fig. 14), which was sometimes embedded in it.

Greek literature includes mention of psykters made of earthenware or terra-cotta, metal (main-ly gold and silver),18 and bronze (e.g., the late archaic example that is now in The Metropo l-itan Museum of Art; Fig. 15).19 Scholiasts and lexicographers, however, do not refer specifi-cally to the use of glass psykters. The ambiguity of the written sources and the variety of names,

shapes, and sizes of psykters—including ψυγεύς (cooler)20 ψυκτηρίδιον 21 or ψυκτηρίσκος 22 ( psyk-tiridion or psyktiriskos, “small cooler”), ψυκτη-ρίαν (psykterian),23 δῖνον (dinon),24 ποτήριον (po-te rion, “cup”),25 and ἒκπωμα (ekpoma, “gob let”)26

—suggest that the word psykter was not asso-ciated with a particular shape of vessel, but pos-si bly with the use and function of a broad class

FIG. 14. Types of ceramic wine coolers. (Photo: Ka-nowski [note 14], p. 124)

FIG. 15. Bronze wine cooler, late sixth to early fifth century B.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, De-partment of Greek and Roman Art (inv. no. 60.11.3; Rogers Fund, 1960). (Photo: the museum)

17. Richter and Milne [note 14], p. 13, Drougou [note 14], p. 34, n. 49; Athenaeus [note 16], p. 124d: “That they also chilled wine in order to drink it colder is asserted by Strattis in Men Who Keep Cool . . . ‘No one would be willing to drink warm wine, but quite the opposite, wine that’s chilled in a well and mixed with snow.’”

18. Athenaeus [note 16], 5.200a: “another 320 carried gold wine-cooling vessels, while the others carried silver ones”; 6.230c: “and a wine-cooling vessel that weighed ten obols [1 2⁄3 drachmas] and was thinner than Philippides”; 4.142d: “There was a bronze wine-cooler that sat on its tripod”; and 5.199d: “After these came . . . 26 water-jars; 16 Panathenaic amphoras; and 160 wine-cooling vessels. . . . All these vessels were made of silver.”

19. Dietrich von Bothmer, “Newly Acquired Bronzes: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bul-letin, v. 19, no. 5, January 1961, pp. 133–151, esp. pp. 141–146, figs. 7 and 8; Drougou [note 14], pp. 26–27.

20. Athenaeus [note 16], 11.502d.21. Ibid., 11.503.22. Campbell Cowan Edgar, Catalogue général des antiquités

égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, 59001–59139: Zenon papyri, v. 1, Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1925, no. I.59038.7 (letter from Amyntas to Zenon, before 257 B.C.).

23. Athenaeus [note 16], 11.503a.24. Ibid., 11.503c.25. Ibid., 11.502e: “Epigenes in The Heroine . . . lists many

types of cups (“poteria, ποτήρια”) and refers as follows to a psugeus; Ioannem Albertum and Mauricius Schmidt, Hesychii Alexandrini Lexikon, v. 4, Ienae: Sumptibus Frederici Maukii, 1861, p. 319, s.v. “psykter”; William C. Greene, Scholia Pla-tonica, American Philological Association Monograph 8, Haver-ford, Pennsylvania: Haverford College, 1938, p. 192, s.v. “psykter.”

26. Greene [note 25], p. 50.

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cylindrical bodies, dating to that period, includes an example decorated with Ionic cymatia (mold-ings) that is now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 16).31 The provenance of this object is unknown, but it was probably found, along with other silver vessels, in a tomb. The British Museum houses an undecorated pyxis with a wider cylindrical body (Fig. 17),32 which was

of utensils that were designed to keep their con-tents cold. Thus, in antiquity, the word was ap-plied in general to different shapes of cooling vessels made of various materials,27 such as am-phoras with double walls, dinoi, situlae, kala-thoi, and, as in the case of the example that is the subject of this article, a three-part glass vessel.

Typological Remarks

The Lithovouni glass cooler has the charac-teristic cylindrical shape of coolers in antiquity, as attested by the literary sources.28 In contrast to the known large wine coolers for symposi-ums, made of both ceramics and metal, the small glass examples vary considerably in size and in shape.

The glass psykter may have been produced to offer its owner cool refreshment. Its three-part structure, designed by gifted glassworkers, has no close typological parallels, not only among well-known pottery wine coolers29 but also in the preserved representations of this type of ves-sel in the iconography of late archaic and clas-sical pottery.

Shapes similar to that of the outer cylindrical form of the glass cooler can be seen in metal-work of the fourth and early third centuries B.C.30 A rare group of silver-spool pyxides with

FIG. 16. Silver pyxis with lid (front, center) and other silver objects from the same tomb. Greece, late fourth to third century B.C. The Metropol itan Museum of Art, De partment of Greek and Roman Art (inv. no. 1972.118.157). (Photo: the museum)

27. Bothmer [note 19], p. 144; Kanowski [note 14], p. 124; Drougou [note 14], pp. 28 and 30–31.

28. Scholia on Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, 2.3.35.1–2.

29. Richter and Milne [note 14], pp. 12–13; Drougou [note 14], pp. 40–59.

30. For the relationship between metalwork, glasswork, and pottery, see Susan I. Rotroff, “Silver, Glass, and Clay: Evidence for the Dating of Hellenistic Luxury Tableware,” Hesperia, v. 51, 1982, pp. 329–337; Marianne Stern, “Interaction between Glassworkers and Ceramists,” in The Prehistory and History of Glassmaking Technology, ed. Patrick McCray, Ceramics and Civilization, v. 8, Westerville, Ohio: American Ceramic Society, 1998, pp. 183–204; and Pavlos Triantafyllidis, “The Hellenistic Koine: The Glass and Clay,” 7th Scientific Meeting for the Hel-lenistic Pottery, Aigion, 2–9 April 2005 (in press; in Greek).

31. Dietrich von Bothmer, Ancient Art from New York Pri-vate Collections, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1961, p. 69, pl. 100.273; idem, “A Greek and Roman Treas-ury,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 42, no. 1, Summer 1984, p. 49, no. 81.

32. Henry B. Walters, Catalogue of the Silver Plates in The British Museum, London: the museum, 1921, p. 31, pl. XVI.119.

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found in Proussa (Bursa) in Asia Minor. An-other parallel, which came from a well-dated context in Greece, is a silver pyxis with a ring base and a shallow lid, decorated with incised ivy leaves and waves in relief (Fig. 18). It was found in a Hellenistic tomb at Trichonio, Aeto-lia, dated to the late fourth to early third centu-ries B.C.33

A comparable revival of the Lithovouni glass cooler shape is revealed in pottery of the late

classical and early Hellenistic periods. Examples include a cylindrical ceramic pyxis from a work-shop in Elis that was found in the western ne-cropolis there,34 and a series of nearly identical ceramic pyxides from Macedonia and Attica,35 which represent a survival of pyxis types of the late fifth century B.C.36 There are other reviv als of this shape in metal artifacts, such as a port-able silver altar of the third century B.C. that is both inscribed and gilded; it is now in the

33. Photeini Zapheiropoulou, “Graves in Trichonio Aeto-lia,” 5th Scientific Meeting for the Hellenistic Pottery, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 2000, pp. 325–326, pl. 164st (in Greek); Zapheiropoulou [note 2], p. 685.

34. Anastasia Georgiadou, Totenkult und elische Grabkera-mik spätklassischer und hellenistischer Zeit, Thessalonike: Uni-versity Studio Press, 2005, pp. 75, 131, and 140, nos. 74.4 and 104.1, pl. 43.

35. Petros Themelis and Ioannis Touratsoglou, The Graves from Derveni, Athens: Archeological Receipts Fund, 1997, p. 125 (in Greek); Zapheiropoulou [note 33], p. 325 (Macedo-nia); Roza Proskynitopoulou, “Hellenistic Pottery from An-cient Epidavros,” 5th Scientific Meeting for the Hellenistic

FIG. 17. Silver pyxis with lid, late fourth to third century B.C. The British Museum, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (inv. no. 1913,0531.2). (Photo: Trustees of The British Museum)

FIG. 18. Drawing of silver pyxis from Trichonio, Aetolia, late fourth to third century B.C. National Archaeological Museum, Athens (inv. no. 13174). (Drawing: Zapheiropoulou [note 33]).

Pottery, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 2000, p. 401, pl. 210d, e (Peloponnese; in Greek); Susan I. Rotroff, Hellenistic Pottery: Athenian and Imported Wheelmade Table Ware and Related Material, The Athenian Agora, v. 29, Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1997, p. 363, nos. 1247–1249.

36. Rotroff [note 30], pp. 188–191, esp. p. 191 (with bibli-ography; type D, cylindrical pyxides without foot, early third century B.C.). The shape is similar to that of the classical type D cylindrical pyxides for ointment or cosmetics; see Brian Sparkes and Lucy Talcott, Black and Plain Pottery, The Athenian Agora, v. 5, Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1970, pp. 177–178 (type D).

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production. The only known parallel is a larger glass bowl from the ancient glass collection of the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh (Figs. 19 and 20).41 This object, which is dated to the third century B.C., is pale green with a yellowish tinge, and it has a broad collar at the base of the rim. According to Christopher Light-foot, this cup “probably served as the inner lin-ing of a metal bowl.”42 The absence of a flat base, as well as the presence of a fairly broad collar at the rim, supports this view. However, the Lithovouni example suggests that the bowl in the National Museums of Scotland was prob-ably the inner part of a similar glass cooler.

collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.37 This group also includes cylindrical lead pyx-ides of the third and second centuries B.C.

The prototypes of these spool-shaped vessels, including the Lithovouni glass cooler, were prob-ably wooden and ivory artifacts of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.,38 including the wooden pyxides from Kerch on the Black Sea39 and the ivory pyxis from Pherae in Greece.40

The pouch-shaped glass cup that forms the inner lining of the cylindrical glass vessel from Lithovouni is also unique in pre-Roman glass

37. Bothmer, “A Greek and Roman Treasury” [note 31], p. 58, no. 102; Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, “A Group of Hellenistic Silver Objects in the Metropolitan Museum,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, v. 38, 2003, pp. 62–64 and 81, no. 11.

38. Katerina Romiopoulou, “Finds from ‘Twin’ Macedonian Graves in Veroia,” 1st Scientific Meeting for the Hellenistic Pot-tery, Rhodes: Archaeological Institute of Dodecanese, 2000, p. 37, pl. 4 (mid-second century B.C.; in Greek); Erophili-Iris Kolia, “Grave Groups from Nafpaktos,” 6th Scientific Meeting for the Hellenistic Pottery, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 2004, pp. 539–540, pl. 261a (early third century B.C.; in Greek).

39. Adolf Rieth, “Antike Holgefässe,” Archäologischer An-zeiger, 1955, pp. 1–26, esp. pp. 11–18, figs. 6 and 7; Paule

Pinelli and Aleksandra Wasowicz, Musée du Louvre: Catalogue des bois et stucs grecs et romaines provenant de Kertch, Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1986, p. 150, no. 65 (fourth century B.C.).

40. Vasiliki Andrimi-Sismani, “A Burial Mound at Pherae,” Archaeological Annual of Athens, v. 16, 1983, pp. 30–31, no. 4, fig. 4 (ivory pyxis, late fifth century B.C.).

41. C. S. Lightfoot, Ancient Glass in National Museums Scot land, Edinburgh: the museums, 2007, p. 42, no. 32 (third century B.C.; formerly in the Piot Collection). I thank Dr. Chris-topher Lightfoot for his kindness in providing me with a digital image of this glass bowl.

42. Ibid., p. 44, n. 5.

FIG. 19. Cast glass bowl, inner part of psykter, third century B.C. National Museums of Scotland, De-partment of World Cultures (inv. no. AI880.18.6). (Photo: Trustees of the National Museums of Scot-land)

FIG. 20. Drawing of cast glass bowl shown in Figure 19. (Drawing: Lightfoot [note 41], no. 32)

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Certain features of the inner cup from Litho-vouni, such as the rounded rim and the almost flat base, which allows the object to stand with-out support (Figs. 3 and 4), suggest that it had a dual function, serving as both a storage con-tainer and a drinking vessel.

After the contents of the inner cup had been cooled, the owner could drink from it by remov-ing it from the outer cylindrical vessel. The use of the inner cup as a drinking vessel brings to mind the ancient word for glass goblets of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., ἔκπωμα (ekpo-ma), which appears in verses 73–75 of Aristoph-anes’ Acharnians. In this passage, Greek ambas-sadors appear before the Athenian assembly and report on their experiences at the royal court of Persia, noting that “as their guests we often had to drink, from cups of hyalos and gold, unmixed sweet wine.” 43 According to scholars, ἔκπωμα (ek poma) is used as the exact word for a glass goblet or cup, and generally for a glass drinking vessel.44

It is tempting to identify the shape of the inner glass cup of the Lithovouni cooler as ἔκπωμα, which was used in antiquity for at least one group of colorless and decolorized luxury glass drink-ing vessels that contained unmixed sweet wine. The citation from Aristophanes on the drink- ing of wine in ancient symposiums highlights

the function of the Lithovouni glass psykter: the inner cup was probably filled with unmixed wine, while the space between that cup and the psykter contained either snow or crushed ice.45

The other glass vessel from Tomb 50 in Litho-vouni is a shallow colorless bowl that is cast and undecorated (Figs. 6 and 7; Appendix, no. 4). The edge of the rim is ground. The shape of this object is unusual in late classical and early Hel-lenistic luxury tableware. Parallels include the cast, undecorated colorless phialae and saucers from Rhodes46 and the lids of glass exaleiptra.47

Location of the Workshop

The sophistication of the glass psykter from Lithovouni clearly indicates that it was the work of a skillful glass craftsman. Its shape suggests stylistic effects first seen in other luxury goods, such as those fashioned by silversmithing,48 which was flourishing in the fourth century B.C.

Although the origin of the workshop that pro duced the glass cooler is unknown, two prin-cipal centers for the making of colorless glass have been suggested for classical Greece: Rhodes and probably Macedonia.49 Both were special-ized work shops, manufacturing such fine table-ware as kalikes, skyphoi, phialae, and saucers

43. “ξενιζόμενοι δὲ πρὸς βίαν ἐπίνομεν ἐξ ὑαλίνων ἐκπωμάτων καὶ χρυσίδων ἄκρατον οἶνον ἡδύν.” See Pavlos Triantafyllidis, “Achae menian Glass Production,” Annales de l’Association In-ternationale pour l’Histoire du Verre, v. 15, New York and Corning, 2001 (Nottingham, 2003), pp. 13–17, esp. p. 13; and E. Marianne Stern, “Ancient Glass in a Philological Context,” Mnemosyne, v. 60, no. 3, 2007, pp. 341–406, esp. p. 367 (Eng-lish translation by M. Stern).

44. Liddell and Scott [note 14], p. 519; Mary Luella Trow-bridge, Philological Studies in Ancient Glass, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois, 1930, pp. 151–152; E. Marianne Stern, “Cups of Glass and Gold,” American Journal of Archaeology, v. 102, no. 2, April 1998, p. 393; idem, “Ancient Glass in Athe-nian Temple Treasures,” Journal of Glass Studies, v. 41, 1999, pp. 24–25.

45. For the use and function of ceramic wine coolers in an-tiquity and the various views of scholars, see Panos Valavanis and Dimitris Kourkoumelis, Drinking Vessels, Athens: Hatzi-michalis Estate, 1996, pp. 23–24 (with bibliography).

46. Pavlos Triantafyllidis, Rhodian Glassware, v. 1, The Lux-ury Hot-Formed Transparent Vessels of the Classical and Early

Hellenistic Periods, Athens: Greek Ministry of Aegean, 22nd Archaeological Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiq-uities, 2000, pp. 87–89 and 164–165, esp. no. 21 (in Greek).

47. Stern, “Ancient Glass” [note 44], pp. 46–50. 48. For the relationship between silversmithing and glass-

working during the fourth century B.C., see David Grose, Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50, New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with The Toledo Museum of Art, 1989, pp. 80–81; E. Marianne Stern and Birgit Schlick-Nolte, Early Glass of the Ancient World, 1600 B.C.–A.D. 50: Ernesto Wolf Collec-tion, Ostfildern, Germany: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1994, pp. 166–168; Stern, “Ancient Glass” [note 44], pp. 41–43; E. Marianne Stern, “Glass and Rock Crystal: A Multifaceted Relationship,” Journal of Roman Archaeology, v. 10, 1997, pp. 192–206, esp. pp. 200–201; and Triantafyllidis [note 30].

49. Triantafyllidis [note 43], p. 15; Gladys D. Weinberg and E. Marianne Stern, Vessel Glass, The Athenian Agora, v. 34, Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2009, p. 2.

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around it, slight groove; vertical low wall with pointed thin and rough edges.

H. 1.6 cm, D. 10.2 cm, Th. (at highest point) 0.8 cm.

Intact. Chunk-cast57 in closed mold, cut; rota-ry scratches on exterior; polished surfaces. Slight breaks on upper surface and at edge of ring. Min imal silica deposits. On exterior, few areas of iridescence.

2. Transparent monochrome cylindrical ves-sel (Figs. 2–5). AMA (inv. no. M 1267). Greenish (Pantone 577c) glass, with few small, irregularly shaped bubbles. Spool-shaped container with cylindrical walls rising vertically from broad, flat base; knob-shaped bulge in center of bottom. Outfolded rim with ring and slightly vertically elevated edge, rounded on inside; beneath outer rim, cut groove.

H. 10.0 cm; D. (rim) 8.4 cm, (base) 9.6 cm; Th. 0.4 cm.

Intact. Chunk-cast in closed mold, cut; rotary scratches on interior and exterior; polished sur-faces. Breaks on rim. Small cracks; iridescence. Traces of rotary polishing on both surfaces.

in Rhodes, and kalikes, skyphoi, beakers, and situlae in Macedonia.50

Athens, the largest city in classical Greece, does not seem to have had significant glassmak-ing activity,51 according to current archaeologi-cal data. However, literary sources and inscrip-tions,52 such as the Parthenon and Asklepieion inventory lists, provide a wealth of information on the role of glass there during the classical and early Hellenistic periods.

The Egyptian city of Alexandria, on the other hand, had a reputation for innovative and skill-ful glassmakers, as is evidenced in literary sourc-es of the late fourth century and especially the third century B.C. As Athenaeus reports, “They had the ability to manufacture glass, working it into many and varied shapes of cups and copy-ing the shape of any kind of pottery” (Deipno-sophists, XI.784c), but this does not seem to be supported by published glass finds from that location.53

The cast glass psykter from Lithovouni is un-doubtedly a unique artifact of late classical and early Hellenistic glassmaking in Greece. It was probably used for serving cooled wine at ban-quets. Related vessels include the painted cast glass situla in The Metropolitan Museum of Art54 and the monochrome cast glass bucket in the National Archaeological Museum in Ath-ens.55 The psykter was probably made either by skilled itinerant craftsmen or in an important glassmaking center of classical Greece, as a spe-cial order from an eminent individual in Aeto-lia who wished to display his luxurious lifestyle to diners in his home.

APPENDIX

Catalog of Colorless Cast Glass Vessels from Tomb 50 near Lithovouni, Aetolia

1. Transparent monochrome lid (Figs. 2–5). Archaeological Museum of Agrinion (hereafter, AMA; inv. no. M 1267). Greenish (Pantone56 577c) glass, with few spherical bubbles. Flat up-per surface with knob-shaped bulge in center;

50. Triantafyllidis [note 43], pp. 14–15.51. Weinberg and Stern [note 49].52. Stern, “Ancient Glass” [note 44], pp. 19 and 35–43; idem

[note 43], pp. 392–397.53. No colorless glass vessels dated to the late classical and

early Hellenistic periods have been found in Alexandria. See Axel von Saldern, Antikes Glas, Handbuch der Archäologie, Munich: C. H. Beck, 2004, pp. 116–117; Stern [note 43], pp. 346 and 372; and E. Marianne Stern, “Glass Coffins and Other Transparent Riddles,” Annales de l’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre, v. 17, Antwerp, 2006 (Antwerp, 2009), p. 57.

54. C. S. Lightfoot, “Ancient Glass at The Metropolitan Mu-seum of Art: Two Recent Acquisitions,” Annales de l’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre, v. 15, New York and Corning, 2001 (Nottingham, 2003), pp. 19–21 (late fourth cen-tury B.C.).

55. Gladys Davidson Weinberg, Glass Vessels in Ancient Greece: Their History Illustrated from the Collection of the Na-tional Archaeological Museum, Athens, Athens: Archaeological Receipts Fund, 1992, pp. 95–96, no. 44 (late fourth century B.C.).

56. The colors are based on Pantone Color Formula Guide, Carlstadt, New Jersey: Pantone Inc., 2002.

57. For the technique, see Stern and Schlick-Nolte [note 48], pp. 50–53.

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3. Transparent monochrome cup (Figs. 2–5). AMA (inv. no. M 1267). Greenish (Pantone 577c) glass, with few bubbles. Everted, rounded rim with solid, broad, outfolded collar; vertical walls form pouch-shaped body, curving in to slightly convex bottom with knob-shaped bulge in center.

H. 9.0 cm; D. (base) 4.1 cm, (rim) 8.0 cm; Th. 0.4 cm.

Intact. Chunk-cast. Slight breaks on interior and on upper body. Polished surfaces; irides-cence.

4. Shallow transparent monochrome glass bowl (Figs. 6 and 7). AMA (inv. no. M 1268). Greenish (Pantone 577c) glass, with few spher-ical bubbles. Shallow circular bowl with flat bot-tom and convex, curving sides forming vertical rim with ground horizontal edge.

H. 1.8 cm, D. (rim) 8.4 cm, Th. 0.2 cm.Intact. Cast in closed mold. On exterior and

interior, traces of rotary polishing and areas of iridescence.