Hydria (water jar): Mourning Women

This water jar speaks to its own function: it illustrates the role of water jars in funerary ritual, which included use as ash urns. Three female mourners tear at their short-cropped hair and carry a basket with small lekythoi — oil flasks of the type seen on the left — and branches and ribbons to decorate a body or tomb. In ancient Greece, lamenting the dead was a woman’s task and even a profession. This vessel was reportedly found in a grave in Attica; the restoration does not hide its breaks and losses, which may have occurred when it was deposited as a tomb offering or smashed on a pyre.