The cup of Dionisos

The skyphos of Dionysus on a donkey is a Greek cup dated from the end of the 6thcentury or the first half of the 5th century B.C. It is made using the technique called ‘black figured’. Outside of places such as the Greek colonies on the Gulf of Roses (Girona), black figured pieces are rare in the Iberian Peninsula, but we have several examples of these vasses in Villajoyosa. This fact could be related to Alonis, the Greek name for the Iberian and Roman city named Alon or Allon. Alonis is mentioned in ancient texts as “island and city of Massalia (Marseille)”, and therefore it is possible that there was a permanent presence of Greeks here; just at the time when our cup was put inside a tomb at the vast necropolis of Poble Nou.

For a Greek, the scene depicted on both sides of the cup was amusing: two maenads, or women’s entourage of Dionysus (the god of wine, revelry and debauchery, the Roman Bacchus) moving forward, dancing and playing the cymbals which mark the rhythm of the march. In ancient times, it was said that these women were crazy, violent and savages, and even they took hallucinogenic drugs, they had nonstop sex and nobody could be reasonable with them. In the middle of the maenads, you can see the god himself, drunk, so drunk that he cannot walk unaided, so there’s no choice but to load him onto a donkey. But even the donkey is under the effect of alcohol, which has caused an obvious erection; and framing the scene, vine branches.

The cup was used to drink wine, and, once dead, to have it spilt over the tomb. For the ancient (and later for Christians) wine was a kind of substitute for blood, and so was poured over the remains of the deceased to help them have a life in the hereafter. That explains the presence of this cup inside tomb No. 10 of the Dr Fleming sector of Poble Nou necropolis.

Height: 86 mm; diam. boca: 98 mm; diam. base: 34 mm
Nº inv. Vilamuseu 003360