Fig. 86. Ship with cargo of pottery
Antike Denkmäler, I, pl. 8, 3a
Sailing-ship with a sheet wound round the mast, and a row of jugs painted in the field above. The latter apparently indicate the cargo of the ship, and the tablet is probably an offering of a merchant to the sea-god Poseidon for the safe conduct of his precious consignment to foreign lands.
This is the only picture we have of the transport of Greek vases, which we know played so significant a part in Greek ceramic industry. Even in the seventh century B.C., when most important localities produced their own wares, such shipments must have been frequent, since, for instance, large numbers of Corinthian vases have been unearthed in Etruria, and Laconian vases are found scattered far and wide. In the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., when Athens supplied a large part of the Greek world with her pottery, the trade must have been an exceedingly active one; so that we must imagine ship after ship laden with pottery sailing from the Piraeus for distant lands.
REPRESENTATIONS WRONGLY INTERPRETED AS POTTERY SCENES
From time to time various representations have been interpreted as pottery scenes which probably have no such significance. The following are the two most important.
1. Interior of a kylix in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A satyr is stoking the fire of an oven on which is a skyphos. This scene is figured in many of the books on vases (cf. e.g. Walters, History of Ancient Pottery, I, p. 216, fig. 68) and interpreted as a satyr firing pottery; probably he is simply cooking his dinner.