Tyrrhenian amphora,

ca. 560–550 BCE

Tyrrhenian amphorae, decorated in the black-figure technique, were made in Athens for export to Italy, where they have predominantly been found in the tombs of the Etruscans, the people known to the Greeks as the Tyrrhenoi. As is the case with many Greek amphorae made for the Etruscan market, this example has a slender shape, bright colors, multiple friezes of real and fantastic animals, and scenes of quintessential Greek myths. On one side, Herakles grasps the antler of the Keryneian Hind, a formidable deer whose capture was one of the Twelve Labors that the legendary hero performed, while Apollo and Artemis arrive to protect it. The reverse features Herakles’s fight with the Hydra, a multiheaded snake, shown here wriggling in a tree as it protects the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.