Tripod vessel

Unknown

ca. 1600–900 BCE · Ceramic · Ancient Near Eastern Art

This ceramic vessel is a deep bowl that stands on three legs. It is made of red clay and has geometric decorations below the rim and on the outside of the legs. It was excavated at Tall-i Shogha, a cemetery site in Fars, Iran. No records exist of its exact findspot, but later excavations have found similar vessels in graves there. Fars is poorly documented in the Late Bronze Age, and it remains an open question to what extent the people living there were pastoral nomads or sedentary farmers. In either case, they seem to have buried their dead in cemeteries and provided them with grave offerings, primarily metal objects and ceramics. It is difficult to say what purpose this bowl served, or even to determine whether it was a special funerary item or an object of everyday use.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1600–900 BCE

Medium

Ceramic

Culture

Iran

Department

Ancient Near Eastern Art

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1948