Two-faced beauty

An aryballos (ἀρύβαλλος) was a small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck used in Ancient Greece. It was designed to contain perfume or oil.

The shape of the aryballos originally came from the oinokhóē (οἰνοχόη), derived from oînos (οἶνος) 'wine' and khéō (χέω) 'I pour'. The first known aryballoi belonged to the Geometric period of the 9th century BCE and was a 'simple' globe-shaped wine jar.

By the Proto-Corinthian period of the following century, it had attained its definitive shape, going from spherical to ovoid to conical, and finally back to spherical. This definitive form has a wide, flat mouth, and a single small handle. Some later variations have bell-shaped mouths, a second handle, and/or a flat base. Potters also created inventive shapes for aryballoi.

A rather famous ancient aryballos (ca. 520-510 BC) offers a fascinating look into Greek ideas of beauty and cultural exchange. It features the faces of a Greek and an Ethiopian woman, inscribed with the word “ΚΑΛΟΣ” ('beauty').

The depiction of both women highlights the Greek fascination with distant lands like Ethiopia and shows an appreciation for diverse representations of beauty. This blending of cultures also reflects the interconnected Mediterranean world.

Beyond its artistic value, the flask also played a role in athletes’ bathing rituals, making it both a functional and symbolic part of daily Greek life. Aryballos often depicted in vase paintings being used by athletes during bathing. In these depictions, the vessel is at times attached by a strap to the athlete's wrist, or hung by a strap from a peg on the wall.

So, this aryballos is about beauty and certainly not about racism as Sarah F. Derbew so desperately tries to prove in her book 'Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity'.

The aryballos in the image is now on display in the Louvre (Paris, France).