Featured What is this and how was it used?

Gorgeous bowls, hampton.

I think these people are both taking photos with their smartphones, a bird doing a balancing act on top of an anthurium is a rare sight:

 

Charis?

 

Bowls rather than domes!

 

I'm seeing lamp parts with a plugged hole

 

"Charon" styx in my head.
.

 

I took photos of the above, there is text at 2 places on the vessel, this text is located near the punty



this text is located near the male figure. Sorry for the photo quality, they were difficult to photograph.

 

I was thinking of Charis, married to Hephaestos, and charm personified.

 

That one looks like RAON.

I'm still seeing CHARIS.

 

With 7 strings, that's a kithara.

 

This isn't an improvement, but picks up some different bits:

 

That's what I also see.

 

Thank you, Bronwen for your effort it really helpful, and all how helped. Andy

 

Terry, That's what also thought, similar to center part of the lamps shown below. But they do not show any signs of being plugged.

 

@Bronwen - Both had between five and seven strings:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0004:id=phorminx

"It (id est: the Phorminx) has the same number of strings as the kithara (five to seven, with seven being common from the Archaic period onward)."
.

 

Learning something new, thanks

 

Don't mind me, I'm just going to mumble to myself. I feel I have seen imagery very similar to that on Bowl 1 on a piece in the Greek & Roman wing of the Met, a monumentally sized vessel, sort of kantharos shaped as I recall. Of course, so far can't come up with the right terms to find it on line. But, thinking it could be Silenus/Silenos rather than Bacchus, did find this:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/colle...le&ao=on&ft=silenus&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=2



Berries seem to be associated with Silenus in a way they are not with Bacchus, so maybe that's what the garlands are meant to be. The second face is more like a mask, a common enough motif.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/colle...13&ao=on&ft=silenus&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=2



A search for bronze bowls in the Met's Greek & Roman collections produces very plain bowls, many quite small, mostly Etruscan & Cypriot:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/colle...material=Bronze&perPage=20&showOnly=withImage

I'm scrambling trying to make sense of the imagery, the forms, the material & the oxidation. If the underlying question is whether these are Greco-Roman antiquities, my best answer is that they are not; they are meant to make you think they are.

 

Just going by your original link:

It consisted of two to seven strings, richly decorated arms and a crescent-shaped sound box. It mostly probably originated from Mesopotamia. While it seems to have been common in Homer's day, accompanying the rhapsodes, it was supplanted in historical times by the seven-stringed kithara.