In the major repoussé frieze on the body a bearded hunter is associated with Dionysian figures.
On the shoulder sit four cast bronze figures: on one side a youthful Dionysos with an exhausted maenad, on the other a sleeping Silenos and a maenad handling a snake. Snakes with copper and silver inlaid stripes frame the rising handles, wrapping their bodies around masks of underworld deities. An unusual program of iconography informs every area of the vessel. Found in an undisturbed Macedonian tomb of the late 4th century B.C., the volute krater is a tour de force of highly sophisticated methods of bronze working. This beautifully illustrated book represents the first full publication of the most elaborate metal vessel from the ancient world yet discovered.
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