Archaeological Evidence: Inscriptions and Pottery

Objects and writing as evidence for Athenian life

Athens in the age of Pericles, 462–429 BC, was not only a political and military power. Its festivals, competitions and crafts also expressed what the city valued. Archaeological evidence helps us investigate these activities through surviving objects and inscriptions: writing preserved on durable materials.

Different kinds of evidence answer different questions. A public decree can tell us what people were required to do. A prize vessel connects a competition with its reward. A painted jug can show how an artist represented an activity. In each case, we need to distinguish what survives from the conclusions we draw from it.

The Brea inscription: religious ties written into a decree

The prescribed passage from Inscriptiones Graecae, Volume I, 46, belongs to a decree concerning the foundation of the Athenian colony at Brea. Its date is uncertain, usually placed around 440–432 BC, within the period of this depth study. Inscriptiones Graecae is the modern collection in which the inscription is published, not the name of an ancient author.

The wider decree deals with practical arrangements for the colony. Ten land-distributors were to be elected, one from each tribe, and Demokleides was given authority to establish the settlement. Alongside these arrangements came religious obligations:

“They shall bring a cow and a full set of armour to the Great Panathenaia, and to the Dionysia a phallos.”

The Great Panathenaia honoured Athena, while the Dionysia honoured Dionysus. A phallos was a ritual representation of a penis. These were distinct offerings to distinct festivals: the cow and armour belonged to the Great Panathenaia, not the Dionysia.

The requirement to bring offerings to Athens shows that establishing a settlement elsewhere did not mean abandoning links with the mother city. The decree made participation in Athenian religious life an obligation. Religion therefore helped maintain the relationship between Athens and its colony, alongside the decree’s arrangements for land and military support.

The cow connects the colony with animal offerings at a public festival, while the armour brings military equipment into that religious setting. Together, they show how civic identity, warfare and worship could overlap rather than occupy separate parts of life.

What an official inscription can establish

The words “They shall bring” matter. They establish a rule, not a report that the offerings had already arrived. This makes the inscription strong evidence for the obligations Athens imposed and the importance attached to its festivals, but not sufficient evidence that those obligations were always fulfilled.

The decree also ordered that its text be written on a stele, a stone slab, and placed on the Acropolis at the colonists’ expense. Making the arrangement into a lasting public record gave it visibility and authority. Its provisions against attempts to overturn the decree further show that the obligations were intended to endure.

For example, a well-supported conclusion is that Athens used festival participation to preserve religious ties with Brea. A stronger claim—that all colonists enthusiastically welcomed those obligations—would require different evidence. An official rule does not reveal everyone’s response to it.

Panathenaic amphorae: competition, reward and craftsmanship

An amphora is a two-handled storage vessel. Panathenaic prize amphorae held olive oil awarded to victors, and their decoration represented the event in which the athlete had triumphed. The vessel therefore brought together a practical reward and a lasting reminder of success.

Examine the three “Panathenaic amphora” illustrations on printed pages 56–58 of the OCR prescribed sources booklet. Treat them as separate examples, rather than assuming that they show different sides of one vessel.

On page 56, the central pair of figures face each other with arms raised and extended in a boxing scene. Additional figures stand at the edges. On page 57, three runners move in the same direction, with bent arms and extended legs conveying movement. Page 58 shows horses pulling a wheeled chariot, with a driver holding the reins.

These observations establish that the imagery celebrated several forms of competition. Their place on Panathenaic vessels connects competitive achievement with a festival honouring Athena. Athletic success was therefore part of the city’s religious and public culture, not simply private recreation.

The pictures also reveal the work of skilled potters and painters. The black silhouettes against the orange-red clay are characteristic of black-figure decoration. Incised lines pick out details within the dark figures. The artists used bodies, limbs, horses and equipment to make the activity recognisable on a curved surface.

Reading pottery without overclaiming

A useful interpretation starts with a precise feature. The runners’ repeated poses, for instance, communicate running and movement. Combined with the function of a Panathenaic prize amphora, this supports a conclusion about the public recognition of competitive success.

The image does not, by itself, identify a particular winner, record a race result or tell us how many people watched. Nor does a scene of male competitors establish the roles of every group at the festival. Pottery is selective: its decoration serves the purpose of the vessel and the choices of its maker.

The amphorae and the Brea inscription complement each other. The vessels show how competition was represented and rewarded; the decree shows how offerings could form part of a colony’s obligations to Athens. Together, they illuminate the connections between festivals, civic relationships and cultural achievement.

The red-figure chous: women perfuming garments

The prescribed red-figure chous attributed to the Meidas Painter, usually spelt Meidias Painter in museum records, depicts women perfuming garments. A chous is a pouring jug. This terracotta example is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 75.2.11, and dates to about 420–410 BC. It therefore comes after Pericles’ death in 429 BC: it offers evidence for the wider late-fifth-century Athenian cultural setting rather than a scene securely dated to his lifetime.

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Look first at the two women and the furniture between them. On the left, a woman bends forwards, lowering a small handled implement towards the area beneath a garment draped over a chair. On the right, a seated woman extends one hand towards the garment. The folds and patterned borders of the clothing, together with the chairs, give the scene a carefully furnished domestic character. These gestures and arrangements help make the prescribed subject—perfuming garments—recognisable, although the worn surface makes some smaller details difficult to read.

Unlike the public competitions represented on the amphorae, this subject directs attention towards clothing, scent and women’s activities. The attention given to garments and their preparation suggests that personal presentation was a valued artistic subject. Furniture, decorated fabrics and the use of perfume also invite an interpretation concerned with comfort and refinement. They do not establish that all Athenian households possessed such resources.

Technique, interpretation and the limits of the chous

In red-figure decoration, the figures retain the reddish colour of the clay while the background is black. On this jug, drawn lines describe the women’s clothing, folds and gestures. This offered artists greater opportunities to represent detail within figures than the silhouette-and-incision approach of black-figure painting.

The scene is useful evidence for how women’s activities were represented, but it is not a complete survey of women’s lives. It does not prove that every Athenian woman perfumed garments, identify the women’s legal or social status, or show how often the activity took place. The painter selected and arranged a subject; the image is not an unmediated record of a household.

The wording “attributed to” is another important qualification. It means that the work has been associated with a painter through scholarly judgement, rather than that a secure signature necessarily identifies its maker. The jug’s chipped mouth and worn decoration also remind us that surviving objects can preserve only part of their original appearance.

Taken together, the inscription and pottery reveal different aspects of Athenian culture: official festival obligations, public competition and rewards, and artistic representations of women’s activities. Their value increases when we connect precise evidence to a carefully limited conclusion.