Hydria with Zeus Fighting Typhon

c. 540–530 BCE

Black-figure terracotta, 46 cm high · Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich

A water jar decorated in the black-figure technique, from the Chalcidian workshops whose home is still debated. One side shows Zeus’s last great battle.

Zeus strides in with a thunderbolt against Typhon.
Typhon is painted with wings and serpent legs; the hundred heads of the poems are not shown.
The other side shows the hero Peleus wrestling the huntress Atalanta.
Where it was found is not recorded in the sources checked.

Typhon, the last child of Earth, challenged Zeus for rule of the world. Zeus defeated him and buried him beneath a mountain, often said to be Etna.

Black-figure: A vase technique in which figures are painted in black slip and details scratched through to the clay.
Hydria: A three-handled jar for carrying water.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain