Image: Handball pick-a-back Ancient Greece

Description: '209. A BALL GAME. Attic b.-f. lekythos. About 500 B. C. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 260. A bearded man prepares to throw a rather large ball. Three youths mounted pick-a-back are ready to catch it. Between two of them is inscribed κ λευσον, ‘Give the order’, the application of which is not clear. A similar scene occurs on a b.-f. amphora in the B.M. 182, where the man throwing the ball is seated. On the B.M. krater E. 467 satyrs are depicted playing the same game. See P. Gardner, Gk. Vases in the Ashmolean, 260' Gardiner, E. Norman, 'Athletics of the Ancient World', Oxford: OUP, 1967, illustration 209 / facing p. 230
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