In thetypology of ancient Greek pottery, thekernos (Greek:κέρνος orκέρχνος, pluralkernoi) 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 ofDemeter andKore, and ofCybele andAttis.^[2]

The form begins in theNeolithic in stone, in the earliest stages of theMinoan civilization, around 3,000 BCE. They were produced inMinoan andCycladic pottery, being the most elaborate shape in the latter, and right throughancient Greek pottery. TheDuenos Inscription, one of the earliest knownOld Latin texts, variously dated from the 7th to the 5th century BCE,^[3] is inscribed round a kernos of three linked pots, of an Etruscan type.

The Greek term is sometimes applied to similar compound vessels from other cultures found in theMediterranean, theLevant,Mesopotamia, andSouth Asia.^[4]

Athenaeus preserves an ancient description of the kernos as:

aterracotta vessel with many little bowls stuck on to it. In them there is sage, white poppy heads, wheat, barley, peas (?), vetches (?), pulse, lentils, beans, spelt (?), oats, cakes of compressed fruit, honey, olive oil, wine, milk, and unwashed sheep's wool. When one has carried this vessel, like aliknophoros, he tastes of the contents.^[5]

The kernos was carried in procession at theEleusinian Mysteries atop the head of a priestess, as can be found depicted in art. A lamp was sometimes placed in the middle of a stationary kernos.^[6]

• Ancient Greek pot shapes
• Eleusinian Mysteries
• Ancient Greek religion

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