BESA
BESA or
BESSA (
βήσα, Eustath. on
Od. 1.1405 b,
16;
βήσσα,
Ath.
11.784b;
βησίον,
 |
|
Besa or Bessa, an Alexandrine vessel, having the image of the god
Bes. (Birch's Ancient Pottery.)
|
an Alexandrine vessel used both for drinking from and also for
holding perfumes in, of the
[p. 1.297]shape of a flask,
broad at the bottom and gradually getting narrower towards the top (Ath.
l. c.); similar to the
ἀλάβαστρον (Schol. on
Aristoph.
Ach. 1048, compared with 1050) or the
βομβύλιος, which Suidas defines by
βησίον. In
Anth. Pal. Appendix 30, 3, Dindorf
and Jacobs understand
βήσαν as the name of
a dancer, but Ussing does not see any reason to refuse to take it as a
goblet
propter salientem inde liquorem. The
vessel is Egyptian, so called from having the features of the god Bes
modelled on it, and we may see the shape of it in Birch (
Ancient
Pottery, p. 29). (See also Ussing,
De
nominibus vasorum Graecorum, p. 62; Krause,
Angeiologie, 379, 380, 407, 408.)
[
L.C.P]
