Athens was the center of art and culture in sixth century BC Greece. The Athenian craftsmen were the masters, using large-scale narrative themes incorporating myth with Orientalizing motifs on their pottery. The Amphora I chose to discuss is decorated in black-figure and depicts a mythological scene of Theseus, a Greek hero, killing a Minotaur, a half man, half bull creature. (*) Used as a grave marker for a high- class Athenian male, this Amphora incorporated the virtues of Greek society while simultaneously implying the allegiance of the deceased to his country and faith. The Minotaur, a monstrous creature with a bull’s head and a human body, was the son of a mythological Cretan queen and her adoring specimen, a bull. The Minotaur would devour the bodies of heroic Athenians, sent as tribute, who dared enter his labyrinth on the isle of Crete. (Getty.edu) This particular black-figure amphora delineates the fleeting moment when the intrepid Theseus, is victorious over the creature, freeing Athens from his impermeable grasp. Maidens, shown with the…show more content… The function, most likely being as a grave marker and vessel of ash, exposes the man as a religious and devoted man of the state. Because of his devotion, he will be rewarded in the after-life. This reflects Athenian society as whole in the implication that their virtues are clear and predominant. It was very imperative for an educated Greek intellectual to be able to recognize myths based on artistic cues and recite and discuss their importance to society and their virtuous connotations. To divulge the story of Theseus and the Minotaur on a grave-marking Amphora was quite common in this time for these reasons. This man shows that he was a valiant warrior, a devoted man of faith, and a high-class citizen of