CIRCA 6TH-5TH CENTURY B.C.

Large bronze cauldrons, frequently with tripod stands, were common in the Near East. They often bore figural ornament on the shoulders, such as bull's heads or griffin protomes (see for example the bronze cauldron in Munich, no. 39 in R. Merhav, Urartu, A Metalworking Center in the First Millennium B.C.). The type was frequently imported into Greece and Etruria, and local imitations soon followed. Cauldrons were used for cooking food, mixing wine and water, given as prizes, and as cinerary urns (for a 4th century B.C. bronze dinos which served as a cinerary urn, inscribed "I am one of the prizes of Argive Hera," found at a tumulus near the Piraeus, see fig. 41 in D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold, Jewellery of the Classical World). For a bronze cauldron from Etruria, found at Monteleone di Spoleto, see no. 4.2 in R.D. de Puma, Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for a large spherical example with its tripod base, see no. 4.39. Bronze cauldrons used as cinerary urns were particularly popular in Etruscan dominated Campania. Many such examples were found at Capua, often with sculptural adjuncts on the lids (see no. 4.52a in de Puma, op. cit.).