A copper with a Head & a Krater

[slokind]

Purchased for its volute-handled krater on the reverse, whether it is, as sold, Geta or (since it is a head rather than a draped bust) Caracalla, in either case Caesar, this coin was photographed before it went into S. Sesqui. for an overnight bath, because, as Bill Welch told me, it almost always is worse than it looks.
It just came, so I thought I'd share it and see whether anyone else has a vase-shape like this.
Not in AMNG I, 1, for either Caesar, and not illustrated in Varbanov I (Engl.).
• 20 03 08  Æ17 2.60g  axis 8h  Nicopolis ad Istrum.  Geta (?), Caesar.  MAR•AVKA (?)•    {remainder of either name].  Rev., metallic volute crater.  NIKOPOLI•    [PRO]S ISTRO.  Not located in AMNG I, 1. The seller suggests that the vase is the one Eurystheus hid in (and thinks that a pithos was a chamber pot rather than an Ali Baba-size storage jar], which is preposterous.  It is a punch bowl for mixing wine and water, so Dionysiac in meaning--if only vaguely.
Pat L.

[Steve Minnoch]

Certainly in AMNG none all the legends of Geta that oddly call him "Marcus Aurelius Geta" use the title Caesar, which would suggest it is Caracalla, unless such a coin has since come to light?

Steve

[slokind]

Thank you.  I'm hoping someone has one preserving A    NTÔNINOS at r. of the head.  None of my baby Getas is a Head.  Pat L.

[Markus]

In Blancon's list 41/2003 no. 696 (17mm) is Caracalla as Caesar / Young head right / kantharos, unfortunately without picture.

No. 690 (also Caracalla Caesar, with Nemesis) has a very similar head to yours - though not the same die, as  it's (from what I can see) ...KAI - ANTÔN...

Markus

[whitetd49]

This reverse seems to be a close match to your kantharos...

AMNG 1484 var., different obverse legend
Varbanov (Eng.) I, 2868 (but bust F, not bust E, IOVLIA DOMNA CE)

[slokind]

Yes, I think it must be Caracalla as Caesar.  Yes, thank you, Tom, it probably goes with that nice Domna, not same die but same kind of vase, and the portrait of Domna is early enough.
The error in nomenclauture, exactly comparable to calling a hydria a chous or a toga a tunic, probably going back to Mionnet's generation,* perpetually copied in catalogs, is one that must be corrected.  These vases are not drinking cups.  They do not have lips of drinking cups.  They have rims with moldings.
* P.S.  Pick indeed cites Mionnet at 1484, but there were others earlier.
For three varieties of kantharos, A, B, and C, see Perseus:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0004:id%3Dkantharos
For the varied kinds of krater, all punch bowls, see:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.04.0004&query=id%3dkrater#id,krater
Click on the tiny images.
These show the Classical forms of these basic vessels.
Pat L..

[casata137ec]

I just purchase a coin with this reverse this morning (and then happened upon this thread!). They had the "vase" listed as a: "CANTHARUS  Kind of drinking-cup, furnished with handles  It is said by some writers to have derived its name from one Cantharus, who first made cups of this p238form  The cantharus was the cup sacred to Bacchus who is frequently represented on ancient vases holding it in his hand."

I am assuming the seller just copied and pasted the info, as there is no other reference to the "form" the maker used.

Chris

PS As I have just bought the coin, the pics are the sellers and I am unable to determine from them if the coin will be cleanable without damaging...but I am hopeful. (this coin was also attributed to Commodus, guess when I get it in hand we shall see)

C.

18mm (no weight given)

[slokind]

Do I see  starting at 7h on the reverse?  Yes, and with the help of the British Museum specimen, I can make out the  opposite the bridge of Commodus's nose on yours, too, and, on the vase, the rim with a molding.  And  (not that I can ascertain that both pis are there, but the epsilon iota is).
Yet another Commodus and Philippopolis concordance with early Severus at Nicopolis.
AMNG I, 1 doesn't have a vase reverse for Commodus, though RPC on line now has several:
http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/7613/?search&stype=quick&q=Commodus%2C+Philippopolis&rno=1
Pat L.
Yes, that stuff about the origin of the word cantharus is old boilerplate.  Actually, someone in Wikipedia does better.  Before the generation of Adolf Furtwängler and his great vase catalog for the Berlin Museum, the nomenclature of vases was still for the most part the fancies of Renaissance gentlemen collectors (all honor to them, but they are often wrong and sometimes hilarious).  The word 'krater' is easy; it is cognate with krasis and the verb kerannumi: mixture is the idea, mixing wine with water.  Wine was strong so as not to spoil; it was mixed with water to taste and so people wouldn't get drunk and sick so fast.  Catalogs of all sorts are the attic of old words assigned wrongly, almost ineradicable, unexpungeable in a trade (catalog writing) where things are published without being refereed.  Not only coin catalogues!
Pat L.
P.S. That spot of BC was caught in time.

[casata137ec]

P.S. That spot of BC was caught in time.

Good deal, the big spot 12o'clockish on the obverse didn't look nearly as deep as the smaller spots directly below, glad you were able to intercept it in time!

Chris

(and thanks for the link, the last time I checked anything at RPC Online the site was sort of a mess, still in development, looks like I will now be using them as a reference) c.

[slokind]

I had a nagging recollection...Here it is.
• 11 10 02 AE 15 Nicopolis ad Istrum.  Without emperor's portrait.  Dated by Pick only II-IIIcAD (cf. Pick, AMNG I, 1, p. 347, nos. 1217-1218 (from different die-pairs), and chart on p. 333.  Pick thought this was "1/2?"; this depends on whether the ones and twos can be sorted by reverse types (non-personal reverses usually ones).  Obv., head that looks like a Classical Apollo type (hair roll and wavy tresses at side of neck onto shoulder); NEIKO      POLEITOmega[N?].  Rev., Footed bronze krater, with plant garlands on the neck and shoulder, and something on top of the sieve-lid (the engraver used a round-tipped borer to make overlapping cups in the die--but these are not grapes).  Are these festival tokens?  PROS I      STRON.

That wreath on the neck, like the molded rim, is characteristic of a metal krater.  I would add now that the obverse head resembles some of the ones labeled Commodus.

Next time I am doing a siege of photography, I'll replace the old flatbed scan.  The objects sitting on top could be cups; perhaps a new photo will help.  The famous, huge, Archaic krater from a Celtic tomb at Vix is one that preserves its sieve lid.  Pat L.
Real photo, second attempt, now added here.

[Mayadigger]

Ave!

Nice coin, Pat, but I see BD on the obverse.

Kevin

[slokind]

Real photo now added above of both sides.
No, not BD.  Scanner picked up green like crazy.  Pat L.
This new real photo is lousy, in that it is not perfectly sharp (I may have jiggled something the moment it took, at 1/10 sec.), but it shows the patina and it shows that flat rim, all round, of a krater, resting on the handles, as well as the relief or repoussé work on the neck and those objects sitting on top of its flat lid.  The lid, whether punctured as a sieve or not, was flat, its purpose being to keep flies and (for example) falling leaves out of the wine.  Pat

[Steve Minnoch]

I couldn't think of a better place to post this, which I think a few people might find handy.

Steve

[slokind]

Thank you so much!  That is so helpful, showing just the essentials.  Even though those are the Classical profiles, already seven centuries old by the childhood of Caracalla, the essential, defining, basically functional traits persist.  Wine bowls and wine cups both would connote Dionysos, of course; together with the ladle and the alternative sub-types of krater and other kinds of cups (the kantharos is the fanciest and the oldest and the most closely associated with Dionysos) they are part of the table service, whether in clay or metal, at a symposium or in any wine-drinking context.
My poor little coin still has specks of BD, and it didn't like the s. sesquicarbonate, so this photo is not final (I'm still worrying about it).  But I made a copy of the post-cure photo of the reverse and marked it.  The Roman vase is, IMO, the Empire period version of the volute krater, a hybrid with the calyx krater.  The kantharos has strap handles attached to the edge of the lip of the cup.
I don't like to use a marked photo without the unmarked one beside it.
Pat