Terracotta kernos from the Cycladic period (ca. 2000 BC), found at MelosIn this votive plaque depicting elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a female figure (top center of rectangular portion) wears a kernos on her head
In the typology of ancient Greek pottery, the kernos (Greek: κέρνος or κέρχνος, plural kernoi) is a pottery ring or stone tray to which are attached several small vessels for holding offerings. Its unusual design is described in literary sources, which also list the ritual ingredients it might contain.[1] The kernos was used primarily in the cults of Demeter and Kore, and of Cybele and Attis.[2]
The form begins in the Neolithic in stone, in the earliest stages of the Minoan civilization, around 3,000 BC. They were produced in Minoan and Cycladic pottery, being the most elaborate shape in the latter, and right through ancient Greek pottery. The Duenos Inscription, one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, variously dated from the 7th to the 5th century BC,[3] is inscribed round a kernos of three linked pots, of an Etruscan type.