![]() The krater is not “gilded,” as frequently described. The final use of the krater as a burial urn was, accordingly, an appropriate one.ĢAlmost a meter high, the krater was found more than forty-five years ago in one of five undisturbed cist tombs dated by Attic pottery to the last third of the fourth century BC, near the ancient Macedonian settlement of Lete, 12 kilometers northeast of Thessaloniki. The elaborate eschatological iconography of the Derveni krater, produced two centuries later, suggests its original purpose was for an initiation or some related Dionysian ritual. Cows encircling the neck of an Archaic krater, Rolley suggested, indicate its probable initial purpose as a sanctuary dedication 1. 1As Claude Rolley pointed out in his text on the Vix krater in La Tombe princière de Vix, the iconography of Greek bronze kraters varies notably from that of ceramic examples and is frequently suggestive of the original purpose of the vessel.
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