Boeotian Haloa

Abstract

Reading University has recently acquired two fresh examples of the group of small vases with outline drawing first discussed by Wide, who tentatively connected them with Mykalessos. One is a kylix, formerly in the possession of Mr. John Fothergill and most generously presented by him to the University, showing Herakles with his club (Figs, 1 and 2b). The second is a pyxis, damaged somewhat in an air raid of 1945, with a subject on the lid that is less easy to recognise (Figs. 2a and 3). Reading has also a third vase, belonging to this series but standing rather apart from the rest. It is a kylix of the same kind as the first, but decorated inside with a rosebud between sprays (Fig. 4). These three vases with Wide's original five and one other kylix published in the Russian Compte Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique 1901 (1903) p. 131 Fig. 229 (reproduced here in Fig. 5) bring the total of vases of this class up to nine. Nothing is known of the provenance of any of the three vases in Reading and the kylix in Russia is published in a list of chance finds and acquisitions in the government of Cherson with no information as to how it was acquired.Wide associated his group with the cult of Demeter of Mykalessos whose temple, according to Pausanias, was shut every night and opened again by Herakles.