Ancient Greek Table ware

[Craig Gascoigne]

Interested in getting references and pictures for plates, knife, spoons, bowls and cup for the classical and Hellenistic periods. Try to create an ancients Greek dining table

[hoplite14gr]

Try the posting win the FOOD subsection of this thread.
Some of them have images from museums.
Kind regards

[Craig Gascoigne]

Thanks Stefanos.

Here is our Banquet last weekend

[hoplite14gr]

Strictly from the photo that would be a good representation of a Spartan feast or a midle class family table in another city state.

Based on the Agora Museum in Athens we have good reason to think that even the "300 mendimnoi" would own dacorated daily use pottery.

Kind regards

[Craig Gascoigne]

One our members represenation. Think more Hellenistic

[hoplite14gr]

Very true Craig.
The PAN METRON ARISTON (*) had gone to the dog in the Hellenistic period.
Especially in the Ptolemaic and Seleukidic kingdoms.
kind regards

(* everything within a limit)

[Peter Raftos]

Craig,
Try these sites:
Classical Athenian Tavernas
http://www.assemblage.group.shef.ac.uk/ ... ly_web.htm
4th C tableware
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/siias/a ... ect17.html
A great Japanese site with explanations of ceramic shapes and uses
http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~greekart/eng.html
Shipwreck of the late fifth century B.C. at Alonnesos
http://www.culture.gr/2/21/214/21408e/e21408ea.html


I have a copy of Pots and Pans of Classical Athens
By Brian A. Sparkes and Lucy Talcott which I can loan you

Better still a PDF can be found here:
http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/publications/up ... hensLR.pdf

Some articles of interest may be:

Debris from a Public Dining Place in the Athenian Agora
Susan I. Rotroff, John H. Oakley
Hesperia Supplements, Vol. 25, Debris from a Public Dining Place in the Athenian Agora (1992), pp. i-iii+v-xiii+xv+1+3-57+59-129+131-155+157-183+185-248 doi:10.2307/1353998

"Spoons in the Ancient Greek World", in O. Palagia (ed.) Greek Offerings: Essays on Greek Art in Honour of John Boardman (Oxbow Monograph 89, 1997), pp. 209-220.

A knife can be found in: The Excavation of the Athenian Agora 1940-46
Homer A. Thompson Hesperia, Vol. 16, No. 3, The Thirty-Second Report of the American Excavations in the Athenian Agora (Jul. - Sep., 1947), pp. 193-213 doi:10.2307/146927


Large forks with two tines have been used since Ancient Greece to help in carving and serving meat. While knives and possibly spoons were common place, many Greeks made do with their fingers. I'll have to research these a bit more.

[Peter Raftos]

As hard as I try I don't seem to be able to track down an image of a spoon. Yep lots of ladles but the humble spoon seems to be missing in action. I am pretty sure Aristophanes talks about them, Even with the finds at Corinth, spoons seem to only appear in the Roman layers. Any suggestions folks?

[Peter Raftos]

Still no luck withfinding examples of Greek tableware but I found a delightful Persian silver spoon with handle shaped in form of a duck's neck from the Achaemenid period. Excavated at Pasargad, kept at National Museum of Iran:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... _spoon.jpg

[Incitatus]

As an aside, does anyone know how the Greeks played 'Kottabos'? I believe it involved flicking the dregs of your wine at a target, but not sure how that might be achieved.
(moderators- feel free to move this to the food forum!)

[Peter Raftos]

The rules and history appear here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottabos
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/enc ... tabos.html
http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/showcase/symposium.html

Images:
Kottabos
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... ttabos.jpg
http://www.hellenica.de/Griechenland/LX ... A1585.html
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/im ... 90.05.0175
http://www.civilization.ca/media/docs/i ... ieu02b.jpg
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/ ... tabos.html

Kottabos stand
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/CGPrograms/ ... astNo=F074

[Incitatus]

Thanks - very informative!

[hoplite14gr]

As hard as I try I don't seem to be able to track down an image of a spoon. Yep lots of ladles but the humble spoon seems to be missing in action. I am pretty sure Aristophanes talks about them, Even with the finds at Corinth, spoons seem to only appear in the Roman layers. Any suggestions folks?

In ancient Greek the spoon is called "kotele" (KOTYLH).
I cannot make out the size from Aristophanes text.

But today in the National Museum I saw various sizes of "cook's" tools and probably leftover metal bits from a bronze "soop spoon".

Probably most of them were wooden and didnt "make it through time"
Kind regards

[Peter Raftos]

Thanks Stefanos,
I have tracked down a newish archeological report:
"Spoons in the Ancient Greek World", in O. Palagia (ed.) Greek Offerings: Essays on Greek Art in Honour of John Boardman (Oxbow Monograph 89, 1997), pp. 209-220.