Panathenaic Prize Amphora of the Archon Archippos

What a winner took home in a jar like this was the oil. It was filled with olive oil from the sacred olive trees of Athena outside Athens and given as a prize at the Panathenaia, the city's festival for its goddess, and a champion could come away with dozens of jars. That is why, in 2025, the Louvre moved this one into an exhibition about how the ancients stored their food.

It was made in Athens in 321 or 320 BC. The painted inscription down the left column names the archon Archippos, the official whose term gave the year its name. On the front Athena strides out with her shield between two columns, each topped by a small Victory. On the back a discus thrower stands between a bearded judge holding a palm and another athlete. The jar was found at Benghazi in Libya, the Greek Berenike, and the Louvre bought it in 1851 from Vattier de Bourville, the Frenchman who had dug there.