I’ve read this
thread several times now, and it just becomes more fascinating with each reading.
This may present as a naïve or – worse, presumptuous question, but …
I can’t
help wondering whether the approach to this question ‘crown/urn’ based solely on visual representations may not in some measure thwart-itself through what seems to be the grand presupposition; namely, that it must be one or the other and that we have a sound appreciation of what each the one
and the other in fact are.
Could not there also be possibility that we in fact don’t really know
exactly what it is in either variant – neither the
type of crown
nor the
type of prize basket?
If so, might we not concede as well then that for what we know, there may have been some
type of object – perhaps possible in both forms, with and without a closed ‘bottom,’ which may not have even been an ‘award’ or ‘
trophy’ of any kind
for any victory won; perhaps – for example, an object of a
type produced and provided by an adoring public and presented in advance to a ‘favored’ athlete. Perhaps one intended and expected to be perishable and briefly-kept – a
type of mock crown, or a mock container for prizes (which would make it simultaneously both an unofficial
type of prize and
prize container)..? Perhaps, depictions of which whether in bass relief, mosaic,
engraved dies or other, are meant to represent some heightened, joyous moment of anticipation, promise of
good contest(s) and hopeful
victory, etc… (?)
I offer this merely as a concept, in no way putting it forward as a possible explanation. I mean only suggest that perhaps there are other possibilities which seem unmentioned by
Dressel or Specht, or at the least, which have not been mentioned here as yet.
Surely though, there are thousands of such sorts of practices of which we know nothing, or which there may be some mention in some obscure, arcane source only waiting to be discovered and connected to some other dots?
I’m really just asking and wondering aloud here, as I so often do.
Thinking of course, that while fascinating and no doubt of inestimable value to press the interrogation regarding the
crown –vs- urn dualism, might it not be quite as useful to remain open and not give ourselves to any notion that it must
of necessity be one or the other?
One of the first & most profound lessons I learned here at
FORVM was taught to me by
Curtis Clay – that, when contemplating the images, devices, iconography or other aspects of an ancient coin, sometimes the best and only thing we can really do is to remain Apollonian in the enthusiasm of our
desire to know and understand what a certain thing ‘is’ or ‘means’ or ‘represents,’ and to be truthful with ourselves in admitting we simply don’t know –
yet.
Best,
Tia