Siana Cup (Black-Figure Kylix [Drinking Cup]): Horseman and Warriors (575–550 BCE): Art, History and Details

Siana Cup (Black-Figure Kylix [Drinking Cup]): Horseman and Warriors (575–550 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Two kneeling warriors do battle in the tondo of this large drinking cup, red blood streaming from their wounded legs. Without labels or attributes, their identities remain uncertain—perhaps Eteokles and Polyneikes, the cursed sons of Oedipus. The exterior figures are anonymous, although many are accompanied by small dots probably meant to imitate letters (for identifying inscriptions). On one side, a warrior is greeted by a nude youth holding a garland, with a horseman, a flying eagle, and several men observing. On the other, a bearded man rides a rearing horse, flanked by six draped men. Waterbirds stand beneath the handles.

Object facts

• Title: Siana Cup (Black-Figure Kylix [Drinking Cup]): Horseman and Warriors
• Date: 575–550 BCE
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter: 26.8 cm (10 9/16 in.); Overall: 14.1 cm (5 9/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1965.78

A detail from the museum

Siana cups take their name from a cemetery in Rhodes where many were first found.

Collection credit

Gift of Edgar A. Hahn

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• "Annual Report for 1965." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 6 (1966): 137-71.
• Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.