Une nouvelle gigantomachie sur un skyphos archaïque de l’acropole d’Athenes

Nassi Malagardis,

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Abstract

This article, an offering to the memory of Fr. Villard, presents the fragments of a large skyphos found among the vase debris on the Acropolis of Athens, an anathema to the goddess. On these five fragments – to which I associate a sixth one – I propose: 1) to recognize, in spite of their condition, the subject figured on it: a Gigantomachy in the iconographic tradition of the oldest version, Lydos’ on his dinos of the Acropolis, and to identify the characters who participate to the battle according to the place that is reserved for them in the literary tradition. 2) The type of the shape to which the skyphos belonged: an experimental hybrid form of the Cor- inthian type of the attic skyphos, and, 3) The painter and especially the workshop in which this skyphos was made: one painter of the Lydos’ workshop, if not Lydos himself in the last period of his carrier.

These three points are supported by iconographic analyses of the theme of the Gigantomachy in the attic archaic pottery and the literary tradition, by comparison with other skyphoi shapes and by a thorough examination of the oeuvre of contemporary Athenian painters.