Sella cacatoria: a study of the potty in archaic and classical Athens

Hesperia, Wntr, 2006 by Kathleen M. Lynch, John K. Papadopoulos

To the memory of Peter Corbett, who figured it out, and Piet de Jong, for so artfully rendering it

ABSTRACT

This article provides a detailed publication of an early black-figure infant/child seat, or potty, found in the Athenian Agora, including a series of brilliant watercolors by Piet de Jong. Later red-figure representations show such vessels in use. The potty is attributed to the Gorgon Painter, and the chronological range of such vessels is reviewed by gathering earlier and later examples of the form, both those preserved in the archaeological record and those known through iconography. Finally, the authors suggest that the term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] was used in antiquity to refer to such highchairs-cum-chamber pots.

INTRODUCTION

In 1947 fragments of a "curious stand" (Fig. 1) were found in an abandoned well shaft on the lower slopes of the Hill of the Nymphs, not far from the Athenian Agora. (1) The well itself, designated deposit A 17:1, yielded material dating to the earlier part of the second quarter of the 6th century B.C. (ca. 575-560 B.C.), and the black-figure style of the stand, described by Homer Thompson as bold and open, (2) is in general keeping with this date. The stand was subsequently reconstructed from fragments and partially restored in plaster; it was inventoried among the pottery as P 18010. In his description of the vessel in the preliminary report for the excavations of 1947, Thompson provided as much detail as possible, laying down basic facts about the stand (e.g., interior versus exterior, principal front, decoration, use on the basis of wear) in an attempt to understand better its function. His description--in an authoritative, scientifically worded style characteristic of an archaeologist not quite sure of what was found--is worth quoting in part:

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

   [The vessel] consists of a drum-shaped upper member supported on a
   flaring base. Between these two members is a diaphragm pierced by a
   large round hole. The interior of the drum is accessible also
   through an opening with an arched top in its side wall. The base
   proper is pierced with a much smaller round opening on each of two
   sides, and it is reinforced at its lower edge by two massive lugs
   each of which is pierced transversely by two small round holes. The
   walls are very heavy, having an average thickness of about one
   centimeter. (3)

Thompson went on to describe the decoration of the vessel, but it was clear that the identification of P 18010 had stumped him.

   The purpose for which the utensil was intended is puzzling and its
   interpretation is made more difficult by the lack of comparative
   material. That it was actually used is proven by the much worn
   state of the rim of the drum and of the front part of its floor,
   i.e., just within the window. The elaborate design shows that it
   was not, like so many black-figured stands, intended simply for the
   support of a round-bottomed lebes or the like. That it served as a
   brazier is ruled out by the absence of any trace of burning. (4)

Having cogently ruled out several possibilities--a normal stand for a footless vessel and the purposes of cooking--and having determined through its condition that the vessel was used in antiquity, Thompson associated the stand--faute de mieux--with psykters, or wine-coolers, an interpretation in part suggested by the provision for drainage. Drainage was facilitated, Thompson believed, by the hole in the bottom (i.e., in the floor of the bowl), while the round openings in the base he thought were probably for handling; these were all interpretations that were subsequently borne out. As for the lesser holes in the lateral lugs, Thompson first considered that they "may have been made only to assist the firing of these heavy masses of clay; they show no signs of wear." (5) In a later publication, however, he concluded that the holes on the lugs were for supporting the stand on two metal rods and that the vessel could be (re)moved by withdrawing the rods. (6)

P 18010 quickly became a curiosity, yet another of those puzzling vessels of the Athenian black- and red-figure style that defied straight-forward interpretation. But unlike many of its contemporaries, the vessel was not to languish very long, for shortly after its discovery Peter Corbett, then of the British Museum, recognized the pot's function. (7) On the basis of red-figure representations, Corbett identified the enigmatic stand as a child's commode: a potty by any other name, or "potty-chair," as it was later called by Dorothy Thompson. (8) Thereafter, even relatively small fragments of similar commodes from the area of the Classical Agora were easily identified by Eva Brann, (9) who went on to establish that such stands could be traced back at least to the second half of the 7th century B.C.

Much more than this, P 18010 was destined to attain "celebrity status," a prominent and very popular display in the Agora Museum, illustrated in many of the guidebooks on the site, and an illuminating mainstay for anyone working on children in classical antiquity. (10) Despite its prominence, however, P 18010 was never properly published, and although one of the largest Attic black-figure vessels known, it was subsequently overlooked in the definitive publication of the black-figure pottery from the Athenian Agora. (11) An inadvertent result of the commode not having been published is that it has been largely neglected by students of Athenian black-figure pottery. It was never mentioned by Sir John Beazley--although he attributed many of the Agora figured vessels discovered in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s--and in many publications it is considered an ancient Greek "gadget," (12) or "a contrivance for purely domestic use," albeit one "gaily decorated with birds and beasts," (13) rather than a spectacularly and idiosyncratically potted and painted black-figure stand. This was all the more a shame as the vessel was skillfully rendered in a series of watercolors capturing its decoration and a similarly artful profile drawing by one of the great archaeological illustrators of the 20th century, Piet de Jong (see below, Figs. 2-6). Originally destined to appear in the definitive publication of the commode, these watercolors were, for the most part, to languish for decades in the obscurity of a metal cabinet in the Architect's Office in the Athenian Agora. (14)