Cista

As a cist or cista (Latin - greek. , Including our case ) refers to a kind of round container that were used for various purposes.

The cista mystica was woven from willow branches and covered the festivities at the Bacchus and Demeter used holy vessels (see Eleusinian Mysteries ).

The cista is shown half open on monuments, such as on coins, particularly in Asia Minor (see Cistophoren ), clay reliefs, and on the Neapolitan colossal group of the Farnese Bull, as a rule, so that the sacred serpent can slip out of her.

Furthermore, it called cists the small, cylindrical bronze containers that have been worked in Etruria, especially in Praeneste, for home use for storage of toiletries, and the side surfaces are usually decorated with engraved figures, while there are soldered on the cover small bronze figures.

The most important collection of such cists contains the Barberini Library at Rome. Especially famous is the so-called Ficoronische cista in Rome (Villa Giulia ( Rome) ), on the side walls of the rest of the Argonauts is shown.

Another Cistenform in bronze are the so-called Rippenzisten whose cylindrical body decorated with horizontal ribs. According to B. Stjernquist they can be classified by the nature of the support device in a series I with fixed handles and a Series II with movable handles, which are likely to include different workshop groups. Rippenzisten found between the 7th and 4th centuries BC from northern Italy to northern Europe. A production center is suspected in Bologna.

Another purpose had the Etruscan, made ​​of clay, four-sided Aschencisten containing the ashes of the deceased and, therefore, on the cult of the dead related reliefs, often show scenes from the Trojan cycle of legends.

Stone cista are a small form of the stone box (English cist ) as it appears under this name in Spain.