Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

8 12

The owl of Athena

hitherto unpublished, shows Athena seated with a helmet on her
head and a pomegranate in her left hand (fig. 619)1. A white-ground
lekythos by a minor painter of the middle archaic period, about
480 B.C., gives head and hand only, helmet and pomegranate being
the essential points (fig. 620)2. The head is simply copied from
the current coinage of Athens—its position in profile to the right,
its scroll-pattern, its neck-plate, its leaves to commemorate
Marathon3—unless of course both vase and coins are copies
of the cult-statue. Replicas of this vase exist, for the type was

1 A. Furtwangler in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 689, id. Masterpieces of Gk- c ^
p. 445 n. 5. I am much indebted to Dr F. Matz of the Staatliches Lindenau-Muse ^
Altenburg for most kindly sending me the photograph of vase no. 203, from wiu

fig. 619 was made. yphiW

2 Brit. Mas. Cat. Vases iii. 396 no. D 22, A. S. Murray—A. H. Smith ^
Athenian Vases in the British Museum London 1896 p. 24 pi. 14 (=t°y ^01
A. Fairbanks Athenian Lekythoi with outline drawing in glaze varnish on .^i
ground New York 1907 i. 54 no. 22, J. D. Beazley Attic red-figured Vases in „oV/ioifl
Museums Cambridge Mass. 1918 p. 71 no. 32 (assigned to 'the Painter of the
Box'), id. Attische Vasenmaler des rotjigurigen Slils Tubingen 1925 p. 140 ll0' *
Bowdoinmaler'). fyilH^

3 C. T. Seltman Athens its History and Coinage before the Persian
Cambridge 1924 p. 103, id. Greek Coins London 1933 p. 91.