Neck of an Attic hydria

Neck and handle of an Attic hydria with figured decoration. Six Centaurs, placed within a wide band, are waking to the right holding branches. They wear helmets with double crests and have their hands bent on the elbows. Geometric motifs fill the spaces among the figures. Wavy relief snakes are applied on the rim, handle and base of the neck. Relief snakes symbolize the guardians of the Underworld and are common decorative features on the vases of the the last decades of the Geometric period. As a matter of fact, they confirm the funerary use of the vessel. The hydria is attributed to the workshop of the so-called "Painter of Athens 894". Although the figured decoration is rather hasty, the vase is important because it contains one of the earliest safely identified depictions of a mythical scene. The first figured vases appeared in Attic burials at the beginning of the 8th c. BC but depicted only genre scenes, related to the funeral. It was in from the later part of the 8th c. BC when painters started depicting specific scenes and figures drawn from the myths. That was a major development which, alongside the spread of the alphabet that took place by the same time, allowed the Greeks to start recording their oral traditions in permanent visual and literary forms.