CAVI Lemma: RF plastic kantharos (head vase: ram's head). From Attica{1}. Unattributed.
First half fifth.
CAVI Subject: On the body of the kantharos: wreath.
CAVI Inscriptions: By the wreath, Gr. in two lines : Ελεφαντι(δ)ος ειμι hι(ε)Ιρος{2}.
CAVI Footnotes: {1} from a tomb in Athens (Hoffmann). {2} the delta written over a tau
(Furtw., Beschr.). One epsilon lacks the middle horizontal. {3} human: see
Bechtel (1917), 581; Namenstudien 21. {4} RE, s.v.; Bechtel, Frauennamen 86ff.;
Bechtel (1917), 580ff. Cf. a ring from Ialysos, Clara Rhodos 3, 60, fig. 51:
Ελεφαντιδος εμι. An Alexandrian hetaera: Kl. Pauly s.v. Pornographie 1062. (All
reff. from Hoffmann).
CAVI Comments: Hoffmann in GVGettyMus 4 discusses the inscription at length, revising his
views expressed in Rhyta (1962): it was incised soon after the rhyton was made,
in the first half of the fifth century. P. Herrmann (by personal communication)
dates the inscription in the first third of the fifth century. R.B. Richardson
long ago (Richardson (1889), 228f.) thought Elaphantis was the Egyptian goddess
of Elephantine; this was accepted by Furtwängler in the cat. of the Sabouroff
collection, but in Furtwängler (1885) he says that while Elephantis was the wife
of Danaus (Apollod.), there are also similar human names. Kirchhoff and
Kretschmer thought Elephantis a dead woman; Hoffmann thinks a human dead
heroized (because of the word hιερος){3}. But it could also be the name of a
hetaera, since it is taken from an animal{4}. H. wonders if E. was a hetaera
turned maenad, perhaps head of a thiasos, but Burkert denies the last, as
leaders were always men. According to Burkert (who was also consulted) hieros
refers to the κριος. Eva Keuls (ditto) thinks it refers to the writer of the
Gr.: he is a follower or sacred attendent [sic]. Neugebauer: "Eigentumsvermerk
der Elephantis." H. agrees with Burkert that hieros refers to the krios, i.e.
the rhyton. - My text is basically from Furtwängler (1885). Attic alphabet. LGPN
ii, s.v. Elephantis does not include this vase. The scanty epigraphic evidence
of the Gr. suggests a date close to the turn of the century (Hoffmann, p. 8).
[This book has no discussion of the inscription; H.'s early views must be in his
AK 4 article.]
CAVI Number: 2432
AVI Bibliography: Hirschfeld (1873), 109/3. — NNN (1875), ZBK: 301. — Furtwängler (1883–7), pl.
70,1. — Furtwängler (1885), no. 4046. — Winnefeld (1899), 20f. (ill.). — V.Pol.
(1928), 24 n. 3. — Neugebauer (1932), 120, pl. 39. — Hoffmann (1962), 7/1, pl.
1,1-2 (show parts of inscription). — Hoffmann (1989), 132-33, figs. 1,a-b.
CAVI / AVI Data from Henry Immerwahr's Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions (CAVI), updated by Rudoph Wachter's Attic Vase Inscriptions (AVI)
