This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)

Lebes gamikos, a vessel that was part of an ancient Greek wedding

The lebes (plural lebetes) was originally a type of ancient Greek pot, a deep bowl with a rounded bottom. It needed a stand, frequently a sacrificial tripod,^[1] to remain upright. In classical times a foot was attached, and it was typically used as a mixing bowl in food preparation. One of the English translations of lebes is cauldron.

The lebes gamikos was a wedding bowl with looping handles; it is thought that it stood by the bride's door and may have been used in a purification ceremony.

A metal lebes, especially one made of bronze, was frequently given as a prize in athletic contests and sometimes in dramatic competitions, as recorded by Herodotus:

Just as the Dorians of what is now the country of the 'Five Cities' — formerly the country of 'the Six Cities' — forbid admitting any of the neighboring Dorians to the Triopian temple, and even barred from using it those of their own group who had broken the temple law. For long ago, in the games in honor of Triopian Apollo, they offered certain bronze tripods to the victors; and those who won these were not to carry them away from the temple but dedicate them there to the god. Now when a man of Halicarnassus called Agasicles won, he disregarded this law, and, carrying the tripod away, nailed it to the wall of his own house. For this offense the five cities — Lindus, Ialysus, Camirus, Cos, and Cnidus — forbade the sixth city — Halicarnassus — to share in the use of the temple. Such was the penalty imposed on the Halicarnassians.^[2]

See also [link]

• Sacrificial tripod

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lebes

References [link]

Further reading [link]

• Benton, Sylvia, "The Evolution of the Tripod-Lebes", The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 35, (1934/1935), pp. 74–130.

v t e Pottery of ancient Greece Wine shapes Krater Kylix Oenochoe Skyphos Psykter Kyathos Rhyton Kantharos Askos Kotyle Dinos Perfume shapes and wedding shapes Lebes Gamikos Loutrophoros Epinetron Alabastron Aryballos Lekythos Funerary shapes and cultic shapes Kernos Lekythos Loutrophoros Phiale Storage shapes Amphora Hydria Kalathos Kalpis Lebes Pelike Pithos Stamnos Techniques Red-figure Black-figure Bilingual pottery Six's technique White-ground Painters List of Greek vase painters Amasis Painter Exekias Pioneer Group Douris Meidias Painter Euphronios Darius Painter Special topics in Greek pottery Typology Kalos inscription Symposium Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum John Beazley Panathenaic Amphorae South Italian Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology

This ceramic art and design-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e