This article is a comparative study of the theme of the hero’s struggle against the sea monster. On the one hand there is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and the aquatic family of the sacred city of Eridu, and, on the other, the translation and actualisation of the theme through the trials or Labours of the Greek hero Heracles. Both worlds conceive the quest for Immortality through a journey to the Beyond. The heroic journey will have its destination in the sacred island of Dilmun on the Babylonian side and in the Garden of the Hesperides on the Greek side. Despite the similarities, there are also notable differences due to the religious conceptions of the two peoples.

Los vasos de la tumba 43 de Baza forman un conjunto homogéneo no sólo cronológicamente, con unafecha hacia mediados del siglo I v sino iconográficamenteya que, sin repeticiones, reunen las tres escenas más frecuentes en los vasos áticos procedentes del mundo ibérico andaluz. En este trabajo propongo una lectura y una interpretación iconográfica conjunta para las tres grandes crateras. Unos vasos cuyo fin fue, desde el momento de su adquisición, exclusivardentefunerario. Sus imágenes, desde la mirada ibérica, pudieron interpretarse como modelo y expresión del imaginario de la muerte: los caballos psicopompos, el banquete del Más Allá o la plenitud en lo divino del ámbito dionisíaco.

In this paper we present an ascus made around 300 BC in the Apulian city of Canosa. This vase belongs to the group of so-called ‘Scylla ascos’. The upper part of the ascos is decorated with the plastic figure of this sea monster, described in the Odyssey, which devoured sailors trying to avoid the whirlpool of Charybdis. The iconographic programme of these vessels alludes to the journey to the afterlife through evil; for in the Surithalic world Scylla is a daimonfunerario who leads the souls of the deceased to the Isles of the Blessed.