Hermes Psychopompos in an Anatolian Grave: The White-Ground Cup from Daskyleion

A striking find emerged from a tumulus in the eastern necropolis of Daskyleion in northwestern Anatolia: a white-ground cup depicting Hermes Psychopompos leading a deceased woman to the underworld. This article focuses on the painter or workshop associated with the cup and questions how it ended up in the multicultural context of a noble grave in a Persian satrapal center. The stylistic study of the vase painting suggests that the tondo was created by a Polygnotan painter, probably the Kleophon Painter, and the palaestra scene on the exterior may be by a lesser painter of the period, the Painter of Heidelberg 209. The outcome of the study challenges our knowledge of Classical Attic vase painting and provides clues about the eastern pottery trade of the late fifth century BCE. Considering the exclusivity of the cup, it must have been brought here as the product of a special and individual commission.1