Kantharoi

Today, the Greek word "kantharos" is conventionally used to describe a type of drinking vessel, imagined as a cup with two vertical handles. Yet the term is far less straightforward than it appears. Ancient authors never defined the form with sufficient precision to allow for the secure identification of specific shapes or variants. Moreover, ancient terminology was fluid: a vessel that we now label a kantharos might have been called by other names. Modern scholarship has not simplified matters; the term has been applied, often inconsistently, to a wide array of forms produced in different regions, periods, and cultural settings across and beyond the Mediterranean. Used so broadly, the category risks becoming analytically empty.




This volume deliberately embraces the term "kantharoi," in the plural. By reopening the question of what a kantharos is - historically, typologically, and conceptually - and by tracing the interconnected traditions linking productions in the Italian peninsula, the Greek mainland, the Aegean area, and elsewhere, the contributors reassess the vessel's meaning within their respective fields. Rather than imposing a single definition, the chapters illuminate the diversity, adaptability, and cultural significance of the kantharos throughout the ancient Mediterranean region over the course of nearly a millennium. These studies do not provide the final solution to the problem of defining the kantharos. Instead, taken together, they demonstrate why the problem is important and what can be learned by confronting it directly.