Underworld - Imagining the Afterlife in Ancient South Italian Vase Painting

"This handsome book explores Greek concepts of the afterlife as they are expressed in images of the Underworld on monumental funerary vases from Southern Italy. The corpus of some 40 vases is placed within its historical and archaeological context by a set of essays by prominent specialists. The book will join an earlier Getty publication, Oliver Taplin's Pots & Plays (2007), as an essential resource for the study of vase-painting in Greek South Italy."--Alan Shapiro, Dietrich von Bothmer Research Scholar, Greek and Roman Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art ;; “This excellent and highly informative book guides us through the Underworld as conceived in Greek and Italic southern Italy and as visualized in South Italian vase-painting. Lavishly illustrated, it contains all the vases representing the kingdom of Hades and enables us to explore the many facets of this iconography, from the first known examples found in the Greek colony of Taranto to the complex tableaux of monumental volute-kraters belonging to members of the Italic elite. Under the surveillance of Hades and Persephone, we become familiar with the landscape of the world beyond. Here, we encounter those gods and heroes able to transcend the boundary between this world and the next (such as Dionysos, Orpheus, Herakles, and Theseus), as well as the mortals condemned to eternal punishment (such as Sisyphus and the Danaids). Far from static, the imagery of the Underworld is developed via various patterns; although the precise cultural reasons underlying such differentiation often escape us due to the absence of archaeological context, their variety reveals both the meaningful character of these representations, which were displayed during funerals, and the complex relationship between producers and consumers. ;; Well-written and highly informative essays provide insight into the ancient Greek myths of the afterlife, the available evidence of the Mystery Cults, and the religious and funerary practices of ancient Puglia, reconstructing the wider context and enabling these vases to be better understood. ;; Suitable for a broad readership, the volume explores the attitude of a specific ancient society towards universal concerns such as death and the afterlife via the powerful language of images, greatly enriching our perspective.”--Francesca Silvestrelli, University of the Salento