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Volume 103 No. 2
April 2000
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Reexamining Transvestism in Archaic and Classical Athens: The Zewadski Stamnos
Margaret C. Miller
Since the early 19th century, students of Attic pottery have puzzled over a group of distinctive vases that feature bearded men wearing a costume comprising chiton, himation, mitra, and boots, often with a lyre and drinking vessels, and sometimes with earrings and parasols. Known as "Anakreontic" komasts or, more recently, "Booners," the figures on these vases have been variously interpreted as men engaged in cultic, ritual, or secular activity, and their clothing compared to feminine or East Greek/Lydian dress. A hitherto-unpublished stamnos in the Tampa Museum of Art provides the latest example of the type. Some details of its
decoration encourage a new look at the group, which is interpreted in light of modern anthropological research and ancient evidence for transvestite activity.
From the beginning of the series, the distinctive komasts are found to exhibit feminine rather than Eastern traits. The practice of komastic transvestism (and, separately, its representation in art) is viewed from a variety of perspectives - psychological, ritual, and social - in order to gain the richest possible understanding of the phenomenon and of the society it reflects.
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