Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2007)
JÁNOS GYÖRGY SZILÁGYI: A Boar Hunt
to ethnic Thracians, 1 ' their presence here corroborates the speculation, already substantiated by the known provenances of the Hellenistic prototypes of the "Thracian rider" stelai, that the workshop which produced the vase should probably be localised on the northern, forested fringe of the Aegean world, in ancient Thessaly, Macedonia, or Thrace. 18 Several pieces of evidence point to the leading role of workshops based on Thasos in the terracotta art of this region, 19 but there is as yet no concrete proof that the boar-hunt lekythos is connected to these centres of production. As far as interpretation is concerned, it is well known that the iconographie type of the mounted boar-hunter can have several meanings. Most "Thracian rider" stelai identify the rider with various Greek or Thracian deities or designate him simply with the word "heros". On funerary stelai, the unnamed figure is sometimes accompanied by the dead man's epitaph. The place of the "rider" in Thracian religion is still uncertain. 20 The figure of the mounted hunter is often understood as a heroising representation of the deceased; 21 it may, however, also represent a figure of divine or heroic mythology, or an ideal of aristocratic conduct appropriate in a certain social context. There is, however, a further possible interpretation. Almost a century ago, Arnold van Gennep published his study of the rites of passage, which attained the wider currency it deserved only with the publication of an English translation in the 1960s. His work attempted to provide a universal anthropology of transitions from one form of human existence to another, including forms of ritual initiation and cosmic changes. 22 These transitional rites all tend to distinguish a state of departure from the old, and a second state of entry into the new; their characteristic feature is a process of marginalisation or liminality in which the individual is first excluded from the community to which he belongs, and then allowed to return. His return is followed by his reintegration, on a new level, into that same community. The liminal state is often accompanied by various trials. The role of hunting as a rite of passage is well documented in many cultures. 2 ' According to the formulation of Ortega, which is in many ways revelatory, the excitement of the chase (such as war, which has always been seen as a form of hunting) "frees us from our familiar personality". 24 In the ancient world, just as in modern traditional societies, hunting played a major role in the ritual transition through which boys attained full manhood, and gained full membership of the society of adult warriors. 25 The most important ancient document, apart from the familiar Cretan and Spartan sources, is the second century BC anecdote collection of Hegesandros of Delphi, whose well-known remarks on hunting in the aristocratic culture of Macedonia were preserved by Athenaeus. 26 According to Hegesandros, only those were allowed to drink at Macedonian symposia in the Eastern fashion, that is to say, reclining with the men and not sitting with the women, who had
