Hagia Sophia’s Krater in Byzantium and Kyivan Rus

The ancient Greek krater—a large, two-handled vessel used for mixing wine and water—had a long afterlife in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, and beyond. The Septuagint text of the book of Proverbs, traditionally attributed to King Solomon, describes the personification of Wisdom mixing her wine in a krater. Krater motifs decorate numerous late antique churches, including Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, where they were associated with Christ as God’s Holy Wisdom and with the Eucharist. The form and symbolic significance of the krater endured in Byzantine art and culture in the post-iconoclastic era. In liturgical texts, the term krater became synonymous with the Eucharistic chalice. Several two-handled chalices from Middle Byzantine Constantinople and Kyivan Rus' were probably intended to evoke the form of the ancient krater, and a 1396 inventory records several kraters in the treasury of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Handled vessels likely intended to represent kraters also appear in Middle and Late Byzantine art, for example, in depictions of the Crucifixion and the Communion of the Apostles. This paper argues that the ancient origins of the krater, as well as later Jewish and Christian associations of the krater with Wisdom and with Christ, made the krater an enduring symbol with both religious and imperial connotations in the Eastern Roman Empire and in neighboring lands like Kyivan Rus'. Byzantine sources perpetuated the ancient understanding of the krater as a mixing vessel, and in art, material culture, and texts, the krater remained a powerful symbol of Christ as the Holy Wisdom of God. By evoking the text of Proverbs 9, the krater also alluded to King Solomon, traditionally identified as the author of Proverbs and the architect of the Jewish Temple, who served as an archetype of biblical kingship and patronage in Byzantium and Kyivan Rus'.