Death - What it meant for Ancient Greeks

A krater was an ancient Greek funerary vase, meaning this vase stood atop the tomb of some deceased person. When studying and drawing this Krater’s display at the Met, I noticed the amount of detail that went into creating these various intricate geometric designs and patterns, which was evidence of the importance the Greeks placed on properly honoring the deceased. One way the Greeks coped with the existence of death was through the celebration of another very prominent theme in Greek art: war. War was one of the many causes of death, but the honor gained in a military death outweighed the perils of death for the ancient Greeks.

This Krater illustrates two figured scenes; the bottom row displays chariots and shield-bearing warriors marching forward. Above this row, there is a funeral procession for the deceased. The Krater is built in a way where the top row is difficult to observe. There are two reasons for this:

1. The vase turns inward near the top so the painting is sloped and would require one to observe it from higher up.
2. The scene faces towards the sun so the sunlight exacerbates the difficulty of studying this top row compared to the bottom row.

Logically, the top row being difficult to observe is understandable, as it was meant to sit up high and face upward towards the sky. In a way, this represented the soul moving on from the Earth.