A lakaina (, plural lakainai) is a specific form of
pottery vessel.
The ''lakaina'' was a drinking vessel. It is a high, two-part cup with a very high added rim. Two horizontal handles are affixed to the lower part of the cylindrical bowl. The term is preserved through the ''Deipnosophistai'' by
Athenaios
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...
. He explains the term is based on the shape's origin in
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...
, in the region of
Laconia. Modern research supports this view. On average, the cups have a height of about 10 cm. Unlike in most parts of the rest of Greece, in Laconia the rather beaker-like ''lakaina'' was preferred to simpler and shallower cup types. Such shallow cups were, however, produced in Sparta for export. ''Lakainai'' decorated by the
Naucratis Painter and the
Hunt Painter survive.
Bibliography
*
Thomas Mannack
Thomas Mannack (born in 1958) is a German classical archaeologist.
Mannack obtained his Doctorate in 1992 with at the University of Kiel. The thema of his dissertation was ''Beazleys spätere und späteste Manieristen''. He is a specialist in ...
: ''Griechische Vasenmalerei. Eine Einführung''. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, .
* Wolfgang Schiering: ''Die griechischen Tongefässe. Gestalt, Bestimmung und Formenwandel''. 2. edn. Mann, Berlin 1983, p. 148f. (Gebr.-Mann-Studio-Reihe).
External links
Schematic image of a lakaina
{{Greek vase shapes
Ancient Greek pot shapes