Fragment of a Decorated Krater in Local Ceramic Production

The fragment belongs to the shoulder and a small portion of the neck of a krater, a large vessel used for holding wine. It was wheel-made using a beige–ochre clay. The decoration, painted with a brown slip tending toward reddish tones, features parallel vertical lines that frame a panel (metope). Inside this panel a tripod vessel is depicted. It is shown with a deep bowl and a circular handle—the only one preserved—placed at the top of the basin; the three supports are rendered with double parallel lines. Fine incised lines also form part of the decoration, outlining the various components of the object.

The artifact, discovered in 1976 in the Montedison Area of the modern city, comes from a zone that in antiquity belonged to the northern quarter of the Greek colony of Kroton. The fragment preserves the earliest known depiction of a tripod in the city. This symbol, closely associated with the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi—where the tripod was the oracle seat of the Pythia and the distinctive emblem of the god—takes on special significance for Kroton. In the second half of the 6th century BC, the city adopted the tripod as its civic emblem, reproducing it on its coinage and thus proclaiming a strong cultural and religious connection with the Delphic cult of Apollo.