FIG. 43. WOMEN WINNOWING AND GRINDING CORN
The preparation of food likewise required the housewife’s direction, though the master of the house, or in large establishments a trusted steward, attended to the marketing. Two small terracottas from Cyprus on the bottom of Case 3 illustrate the making of bread by very primitive methods. In the first ([fig. 43]), the woman at the left is winnowing grain with a sieve, which she holds, and a winnowing-fan shaped like a shovel, which lies by her side. The other woman (whose head is unfortunately missing) is grinding the corn on a saddle-quern; she draws the upper millstone back and forth over the lower, which is provided with side boards to prevent the meal from falling off—a hard day’s work, one would say. The other terracotta represents a primitive method of baking bread. A clay oven like a huge bowl was built up by hand in a convenient place. The usual fuel, dried grasses, was placed in and around it and after the oven became heated and the fire had died down, the housewife set the flat loaves around the inside to bake ([fig. 42]).
FIG. 44. WOMEN AT A WELL-HOUSE IN ATHENS
Another task often represented on vases is the drawing and carrying of water. In many places the public well-houses were the principal source of supply, as the piping of water into dwellings was unusual in Greece until Roman times. A hydria in Case 2 shows a group of women carrying away their jars on their heads from a public well-house ([fig. 44]).
FIG. 45. MARRIAGE-VASE
In Athens, and probably more or less throughout the Greek world, a woman’s life was rather monotonous. Ladies did not go out unattended, and indeed were not expected to go out at all without good reason. A wife did not receive her husband’s guests or take part in his social life; but women were included in family gatherings such as weddings and dinners after the birth of children, they made visits to women relatives and friends, and shared in the frequent religious festivals, which at Athens included the theatre. In the earlier vase paintings there are comparatively few figures of women, and such as appear are usually goddesses or accessory persons in mythical scenes; but with the gradual change to subjects taken from every-day life in the later sixth and the early fifth century, we begin to see women about their usual occupations, or in groups talking with each other or with men. Much of the later Athenian pottery is decorated with charming scenes from the life of women, showing them with their children, at their toilet, busy with embroidery, or playing with pets. The younger ones seem to have enjoyed some games which we have relegated to childhood, such as spinning tops (see [fig. 53]). On the marriage-vases we see the bride being dressed by her friends and servants, or receiving presents on the day after the wedding, the traditional occasion for the presentation of gifts. Two of these vases are in Case B in the Fifth Room ([fig. 45]), and a perfume vase in Case Q is decorated with a similar scene. The usual presents seem to have been bands and ribbons for the hair, perfumes, jewelry, and pets, especially birds.
