Ash Urn with a Relief of Pelops and Hippodamia in the Princeton University Art Museum, August 2009

Ash Urn with a Relief of Pelops and Hippodamia
Etruscan, Volterra region, 2nd half of the 2nd century BC
Alabaster

# Y1986-68

This urn has suffered considerable water damage but is of high quality. It originally contained the cremated remains of a wealthy Etruscan from Volterra, Italy, joining other urns in a family vault. The relief tells the story of Pelops and Hippodameia, the daughter of King Oinomaos of Pisa, in Greece. A prophecy warned the king that he would be killed by his daughter's husband. He therefore made it a condition of her wedding that he might pursue her and any potential spouse in his chariot, and should he catch them, spear her suitor to death. The wily Pelops bribed the king's charioteer, Myrtilos, to remove the linchpins of his master's chariot, causing him to be thrown and killed. The tale became the foundation myth of the Olympic Games and was represented in the east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. In this relief, different episodes are condensed into a single image, so that while Hippodameia, who looks back at Pelops, is being helped from the chariot by Myrtilos, the horses are still in violent motion, trampling the fallen Oinomaos. At the far right are a winged death-demon and a fish-bodied Triton, a reminder that Pelops's horses were a gift from Poseidon, god of the sea.

Text from the Princeton University Art Museum label.