Un cratere a figure rosse da Irsina: proposte di lettura

A Red-figure Calyx-krater from Irsina : Context and Interpretation Irsina, located in the upper valley of the river Bradano, about thirty kilometres north-west of Matera, is one of the most important (although little-known) Peuketian settlements west of the Premurgian Depression. The progressive expansion of the modern city has resulted in the almost complete obliteration of the archaeological evidence, known to us mainly as a result of occasional discoveries and unsystematic excavations undertaken in the northern area of the modern town (Rione Cappuccini and Rione Piano La Croce), the location of a vast necropolis. Among the finds, ranging in date from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods, some red-figure kraters stand out, including an Attic calyx-krater by the Altamura Painter (Rione Cappuccini), and an Apulian vessel of the same type showing the liberation of Andromeda by the Darius Painter (Piano La Croce). Further information has been provided by a recent study focusing on a Metapontine bell-krater with a representation of Dionysos found in 1927 in Piano La Croce (Bottini 2016). This paper discusses the equally complex history and interpretation of a calyx-krater by the Dolon Painter showing Bellerophon fighting the Chimaera, which was found in the same area. The piece is now kept in the Irsina Museum, which also houses the collection of Michele Janora, an important local scholar who, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, played a prominent role in the protection of antiquities found in this part of inland Basilicata.