Dipylon Amphora

The Dipylon Amphora (also known as Athens 804) is a large Ancient Greek painted vase, made around 750 BC, and now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Painted amphorae of this size were made as grave markers. The intact clay pottery vessel was found at the Dipylon cemetery, near the Dipylon Gate, in Kerameikos, the ancient potters' quarter on the northwest side of the ancient city of Athens. It is one of around 50 examples attributed to an unknown artist given the notname of "the Dipylon Master", one of the earliest individually identifiable Greek artists.

The Dipylon Amphora, mid-8th century BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

The amphora was made on a potter's wheel in three sections that were joined together to form a single large vessel, 160 centimetres (63 in) high. The base has a hole to allow libations to be poured for the dead, and it has small handles on the shoulders of the ovoid body.

The outer surface of the amphora bears horizontal bands of painted decoration in the Late Geometric style, including single, double and triple meanders. The tall cylindrical neck, half the height of the body, includes friezes of repeated stylised deer and of goats. A rectangular panel between the handles on one side depicts a prothesis scene, the lying in repose of a draped dead woman on a bier, with a checkered shroud above the body, and stylised figures of male and female mourners to either side, each with lines for their arms raised to their blob head, a triangular torso, and hips and legs that are modelled, and swell abruptly from a wasp waist. There are similar figures in a panel on the opposite side, and small groups of figures under each handle.

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  Detail of the prothesis scene
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  Detail of bottom of the neck, with the band of goats