Panathenaic Amphora. Panathenaic amphorae were the amphorae, large ceramic vessels, that contained the olive oil given as prizes in the Panathenaic Games.
Some were ten imperial gallons and 60-70 cm high. This oil came from the sacred grove of Athena at Akademia.
The amphorae which held it had the distinctive form of tight handles, narrow neck and feet, and they were decorated with consistent symbols, in a standard form using the black figure technique, and continued to be so, long after the black figure style had fallen out of fashion. Some Panathenaic amphorae depicted Athena Promachos, goddess of war, advancing between columns brandishing a spear and wearing the aegis, and next to her the inscription of the prizes from Athens.
On the back of the vase was a representation of the event for which it was an award. Sometimes roosters are depicted perched on top of the columns.
The significance of the roosters remains a mystery. Later amphorae also had that year's archon's name written on it making finds of those vases archaeologically important. The vases were commissioned by the state from the leading pottery workshops of the day in large numbers. Their canonical shape was set by 530 BCE, but the earliest known example is the Burgon amphora, which depicts Athena's owl nestling on the neck of the vase and on the reverse is a synoris team. This may mean that the vase predates the festival's reorganiz
Some were ten imperial gallons and 60-70 cm high. This oil came from the sacred grove of Athena at Akademia.
The amphorae which held it had the distinctive form of tight handles, narrow neck and feet, and they were decorated with consistent symbols, in a standard form using the black figure technique, and continued to be so, long after the black figure style had fallen out of fashion. Some Panathenaic amphorae depicted Athena Promachos, goddess of war, advancing between columns brandishing a spear and wearing the aegis, and next to her the inscription of the prizes from Athens.
On the back of the vase was a representation of the event for which it was an award. Sometimes roosters are depicted perched on top of the columns.
The significance of the roosters remains a mystery. Later amphorae also had that year's archon's name written on it making finds of those vases archaeologically important. The vases were commissioned by the state from the leading pottery workshops of the day in large numbers. Their canonical shape was set by 530 BCE, but the earliest known example is the Burgon amphora, which depicts Athena's owl nestling on the neck of the vase and on the reverse is a synoris team. This may mean that the vase predates the festival's reorganiz
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