Each shape has its function
Two rooms of the archaeological collections display artifacts from Greece and Magna Graecia, predominantly vases, dating from the 8th century BC until the Hellenistic age.
The pottery forms differ from each other based on specific functions. In ancient Greece, most vases were produced for daily use and, despite the large number of specimens found in the Mediterranean basin, ceramic forms are relatively few and standardized.
In the rooms you will therefore see a selection of these forms. Some were typically used for drinking: the skyphos like a cup (numbers 12,15,28 and 30) and the kylikes, open and very wide cups used during banquets. At no. 32 you will see another form related to water, as can also be understood from the name, the hydria. This specific vase was functional both to transport and pour the liquid, using respectively the two parallel handles or the vertical one.
Probably to contain oil, the pelike was used instead, a variant of the amphora. Examples of this are no.1, on which is represented the scene of a girl playing ball and following the god Eros, and no. 5 with a typical iconography of the exchange of gifts between young couples.
Finally, there are smaller wares that were usually used to contain ointments or perfumes: the aryballos, the alabastron with its elongated and tapered shape, and the lekythos, the container par excellence for perfumes, linked to the female sphere, but also to the funerary one.
In the rooms, you can also find examples of kraters, the large vases in which wine was mixed. This form was linked to the ritual of the symposium, a crucial moment for Greek society in which political and social ties between the elites were consolidated.
To learn more about these collections, you can book the guided tour “Stories of Ceramics: the collections of Greek vases” here.