White-ground Kyathos, Girls and Phallus-Bird

Most of the vessels exhibited here were produced in Athens, exported to Italy and served as tableware during the symposium, the banquet. The pictures on the drinking cups, beakers and wine-mixing vessels show both mythical creatures from the circle around Dionysus – satyrs,maenads, nymphs – and the humans using these vessels during the symposium: Men of various ages and hetaerae, professional ‘ladies of pleasure’. Homo- and heterosexual activities are to be seen in almost equal measure; both were depicted particularly drastically around 500 BC. In reality, strict social norms applied.