Journal - Comune di Monteleone di Spoleto

She points to the Kelermes rhyton, whose iconography
shows the hero fighting a lion and holding its body in his
arms and the centaur carrying his prey slung on a branch
after the hunt. 93 The closest iconographic match to the latter
is the seated centaur on a Pontic vase by the Tityos Painter. 94
The subject of the frieze on the proper left side of the
chariot has a long history and was very popular throughout
the mediterranean world. To quote Chrysoula Kardara’s
description of a jug from rhodes of the early second half of
the seventh century B.C.: “a lion is drawn attacking a bull,
an oriental theme known to the mycenaeans, from whom it
was transferred to the levant in the late second millennium
B.C.” 95 Following the preferred east Greek iconography,
the bull stands upright on its four legs before succumbing.
The image of the bull kneeling on its front legs found in
etruria seems to belong to the attic tradition, as it is depicted
on imported pottery, the most famous example being the
François Vase (ca. 570 B.C.) found at Chiusi. 96 The iconography
of such local works as the Pontic vases made at Vulci
in the second half of the sixth century B.C. and examined
by maria antonietta rizzo seems to follow this tradition. 97
Since 1996 i have focused on the motif of the kouros
standing on a lion protome between two confronted images
of a recumbent animal. The group was made to hide the
joints of the three panels of the chariot, with the addition of
a boss above the kouros. 98 Here i suggest that the two recumbent
animals must originally have been lions (see Figure
iii.8) and that the animal on the right was later replaced
by a crouching ram. The composition of those groups may
be compared with that of the figural handles of bronze
hydriae and oinochoai attributed mainly to laconia (produced
between 575 and 525 B.C.) and Corinth (produced
between 540 and the early fifth century B.C.). 99 These handles
show a naked youth (a kouroslike figure) with two
crouching rams and, below them, an inverted palmette. The
youth’s arms are bent upward, and his hands hold the tails
of two symmetrically placed lions that are fixed to the rim of
the vase. There are examples of this type where the naked
youth stands on a gorgon head and not on the more common
palmette, 100 just as the kouroi of our chariot stand on
lion heads. in the Corinthian group, the most complete of
the five known handles with gorgoneia belongs to the hydria
from an illyrian tomb with rich bronzes and other precious
grave goods in novi Pazar, which Stibbe dated about 540 –
520 B.C. 101 The laconian series seems to have been made
almost solely for export, traveling as far afield as the Carpathian
basin in eastern Hungary, although some examples
have been found in laconia, demonstrating their provenance.
102 our bronzeworker may have been inspired by the
same sources followed by the laconian handles and later
imitated by the Corinthian ones. 103 The artist who adapted
the models to fit the chariot and satisfy the requirements of
his patron replaced the gorgoneion and the rams at the feet
of the kouroi with lions (Figure iii.8). He did not totally eliminate
the rams, however, which are often depicted on laconian
handles from mainland Greece and magna Graecia, 104
but placed them on the rear finials of the chassis.
The influence of Peloponnesian art can be seen in the
iconography of achilles’s helmet on the central panel.
The ram protome matches the famous helmet from metapontum
(Figure iii.9), even if it is later than the chariot. 105 in
the debate over where this helmet was made, marisa Bonamici
proposes an east Greek origin, basing her suggestions
on the decorative border and ram protome on the shield
found with it in the same tomb. 106
other features of the scenes on the chariot have east
Greek parallels. The figure of Thetis is very like the gypsum
statuette from the isis Tomb at Vulci (575 – 550 B.C.), which
today is associated with rhodes. 107 The hair of achilles and
of the woman under the horses in the proper left panel
resembles that of some small kouroi from naukratis and on
terracotta vases from rhodes. 108 Though different in style,
these vases also favor subjects like boar heads, eagle heads
(see Figure iii.43), and recumbent rams. 109 The human faces
have been likened to those on bronze sheets from olympia
considered Samian. These works also provide parallels to
the garments worn by Thetis and the woman on the proper
left panel, as well as to the male figures’ unpleated chitoniskoi,
or short tunics. 110 The faces of the kouroi have been
compared to those of the female sphyrelata from Castel San
mariano and the male faces on the infundibulum (funnel
with sieve) from Capua, both of which are clearly of ionian
stamp. 111
in her study of archaic Greek kouroi Gisela richter
claimed that the naked youths on the monteleone chariot,
which she believed were etruscan, showed a lack of anatomical
development compared with the contemporary
east Greek examples. 112 However, she also agreed with the
majority of scholars, who date the chariot about 540 B.C.
(not before 550 – 540 B.C.) because of the two little master
attic lip-cups among the grave goods in the tomb (Figure
iii.44). as i shall show presently, the chariot must be
dated earlier for reasons other than of iconography and
style. The anatomical features that richter rightly deemed
archaizing if dated to 540 are therefore perfectly appropriate
for the kouros in east Greek art of about 555 B.C.,
which she described thus: “The head is large in proportion;
the ears are flat; the lower boundary of the thorax forms
an angle far below the pectorals; there is no protrusion at
the flanks; the vasti are not differentiated.” These features
appear on an ionian kouros in Stockholm, certainly a little
older than our chariot, that richter considered Greek, as
against others who identify it as etruscan. 113 even if it shows
more flowing surfaces — perhaps because it was cast, not
The Monteleone Chariot III: Construction and Decoration 59