Greek object of the day: This sexy askos

We found it in a small museum next to one of the world's most important cemeteries

Readers, we have moved on from naval heritage to matters more amatory in nature.

The object is an askos, which is kind of globular pottery, perhaps for funerary use, painted with bands of decoration or various scenes. This one is on permanent exhibition at the Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos. What it depicts is possibly banned by Instagram and all that social media jazz. Whose it was we aren’t sure.

It is Object #30 at the museum. We gave the askos a digital mirror effect so that you can see the design on the reverse side — ideally, the museum would have a display that could afford a 360-degree view, but it doesn’t, so you have to use your imagination a bit. It is interesting that the only person wearing any clothing in the main scene is a woman, and it some kind of a hat, kind of like the ones Valerie Harper used to wear on Rhoda.

The design is surprisingly contemporary, despite the vessel probably dating from around 440 B.C. What visitors might find more surprising, though, is that it is found inside the museum adjacent to an archaeological site known principally — but not only — as the location of the necropolis of Athens in antiquity. How cool, after all this time, is that?

That is why this astonishingly vivid “sexy askos is our Grecian objet du jour.