Art Museum Journal

Marble Vase with Panther Handles from Petra
By GAIL S. MYHRE
September 15, 2009

The exquisite monumental cantharus or Vase with Panther Handles (1st Century A.D.), made of pavonazzetto marble, is the only example of its kind ever found. Carved by Roman master craftsmen in the imperial workshops of the Augustan era, the vessel was intended as a atrium or garden ornament, the largest and finest such object to survive from classical antiquity.
 
The cantharus was found in Petra, the famous stone city of Jordan and ancient capital of the Nabataeans. Imported there from Rome through Phrygia in what is now Turkey, the precious artifact is the very embodiment of the great wealth and artistic sensibilities acquired by the city’s inhabitants as a result of lucrative trade with the expansionist Roman Empire. This particular piece, a striking example of that burgeoning prosperity, was especially appealing to the tastes of the Nabataeans, given their preference for naturalistic animal and vegetal forms over the abstract architectural motifs found in Hellenistic art.

Archaeologists uncovered the vase in a large Byzantine church at Petra. The city's Christian residents salvaged it from the ruins of a Nabataean villa and used it in their church as a water basin for ritual cleansing. Though the cantharus was partially shattered (probably during a fire that destroyed the building in the 6th Century A.D.), the vessel's fragments were reassembled and it now stands nearly perfectly intact.
 
The vase's presence in the Nabataean metropolis of Petra is a graphic illustration of growing Roman cultural influence over the then-known ancient world. Petra's location along an important trade route ensured that new wealth and ideas flowed there continually. This constant influx helped Petra develop into a cosmopolitan locale thoroughly Romanized well before Nabataea's peaceful annexation by Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 A.D.) in 106 A.D. The ruler renamed the province Arabia Petraea. The Nabateans' artistic assimilation was so complete that most of the surviving objects excavated from Petra reveal a distinct Hellenistic influence rather than one that reflects earlier native traditions.
 
Petra was nearly half-destroyed after a major earthquake in 363 A.D.; it never recovered entirely from the shock. Trade routes shifted, sapping the location's economic strength. The quake disrupted the water supply so necessary to a desert city. Despite having boasted its own bishop during the Christian Byzantine era, Petra was in serious decline. By 700 A.D., only a small remnant population resided there.
 
Petra remained unknown to the Western world until its “rediscovery” by Swiss explorer Johann Burkhardt in 1812. UNESCO designated Petra a World Heritage Site in 1985.
 
The magnificent Marble Vase with Panther Handles was one of 170 antiquities displayed in Petra: Lost City of Stone. The exhibition was organized by the American Museum of Natural History and the Cincinnati Art Museum under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Beginning in 2003, the vessel was shown at the AMNH, Cincinnati Art Museum, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta and the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Québec before its return to Amman in 2008.
 
Source
Taylor, Jane. Petra and the Kingdom of the Nabataeans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.