Unknown Artist
Obverse, Athena
Reverse, chariot race
From the second quarter of the sixth century B.C. on, victors in the contests for the Panathenaic festival in Athens were awarded a standardized vase containing one metretes (about forty-two quarts) of olive oil from sacred olive groves in Attica. The official decoration on the front was a picture of a statue of Athena, fully armed, standing between two columns. The event for which the vase was awarded was illustrated on the back. This vase was the prize of a victor in the prestigious chariot race.
Credit: Fletcher Fund, 1956
c. 520 B.C.
Terracotta; black-figure
62.2 cm
56.171.4
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019
Permanent collection