Chapter XVIII

., as well as a series of smaller examples, which are mere cinerary urns. Among other examples of terracotta as used in tombs may be mentioned here a series of small reliefs found in tombs at Capua and elsewhere in Southern Italy. They consist of masks of Satyrs, river-gods, and Gorgons, and are often highly coloured in red and blue. They are of late archaic work, about 480 B.C., but the exact way in which they were used to decorate the tombs is uncertain. The British Museum collection contains many specimens of these objects.[364]

There is a curious class of objects which hardly come under the heading of any other category, but may be conveniently discussed here. Complete specimens are very rare, but there is one in the Museum at Geneva which has been identified as a brazier (πύραυνος or ἐσχάρα), and more recently as a baking-oven (κλίβανος).[365] The form is that of a large basin on a high stand, hollow underneath, with three square solid handles projecting upwards from the rim. These handles, of which over a thousand examples are to be found in various collections, are usually the only part remaining, sometimes with part of the rim attached. They are decorated with heads and other devices, usually in relief on square panels, and the majority of these heads are of a Satyric or grotesque character, wearing conical caps or adorned with ivy-wreaths. They probably represent demons of some kind, and are placed there with superstitious intent, to avert evil influences from whatever was baked or cooked in the vessel. Similar masks are usually seen attached to representations of forges and ovens on the painted vases,[366] and remind us of the pseudo-Homeric invocation of evil deities against the potters of Samos (see also p. 213 below). Professor Furtwaengler has identified the heads as those of the Kyklopes, the attendant workmen of Hephaistos.[367]

These objects are found all over the Mediterranean, especially at Halikarnassos, Naukratis, and Delos, and the last-named place has been regarded as the centre of their manufacture. They are all of the same brick-like, coarse, red clay. Some bear the name of their maker, Hekataios or Nikolaos. Besides the heads already mentioned, heads of goats or oxen, or of Sirius, thunderbolts and rosettes are used by way of devices. They have been collected together, and illustrations of all the different types given by Conze in the _Jahrbuch_ for 1890, p. 118 ff.: two specimens are given on Plate IV. They belong to the Hellenistic Age.

Other objects that exemplify the use of clay or terracotta in Greek daily life are: moulds for vases and terracotta figures, lamps, weights, and stamps for various purposes. Many flat discs of terracotta have been found at Tarsus, Gela in Sicily, Tarentum, and other places, pierced with two holes and about three inches in diameter.[368] They are stamped with various devices and inscriptions, but their use is unknown. Other discs of convex form found at Halikarnassos and stamped with heads in relief are supposed to have been weights ([λεῖαι) to hold down the threads of the loom (ἀγνύθες),[369] such as are used by the Greeks at the present day; others again may be the weights used for keeping the ends of the folds of a himation in position. Small pierced cones of terracotta often found in the fields of Greece have been supposed to have been suspended round the necks of cattle, but are probably weights of some kind.[370] Lastly, terracotta egg-shaped objects have been found in Sicily inscribed with various names, and are supposed to have been voting-tickets used for the ballots of the tribes.[371]

Many examples have been found of terracotta impressions from coins, which may have been the trial-pieces of die-sinkers or forgers, since persons of that class, as among the Romans, seem to have employed this material for their nefarious practices. They are more fully discussed in