Three Latest Pottery Pickups

Yes another little beauty Bob!...Nice 'Colouring' (English spelling).....Looks very similar in style to your number 3 example but bigger? Great provenance, the Sackler collection looks pretty amazing.
Congrats on adding this one to your very impressive assemblage......

Thanks for sharing everything here, Bob (I've been lurking... the few electives I was able to take way back when were usually ANthropology/Archaeology))



Maybe even a wine carafe?

I never cease to be amazed at the skill of these craftsmen, Bob. The body of the jug is almost a perfect sphere.


To see the collection all together like this is quite breathtaking. What a lot of history there. If only they could speak!

Thanks, Jim.

The table setting is actually staging, in preparation for moving these to display cases. Finally, after a very long delay (due initially to the pandemic, and then to stock issues at the local IKEA), I was able to pick up a couple of display cases today. With several rounds of houseguests coming over the next few weeks, I won't be able to assemble/set up the cases for a bit. But soon. In the meantime, I wanted to gather up the material.

When I look at an array like that, and your comment, I reflect on how many medieval sovereigns died by assassination by sword or potion.

I'm just gonna assume that's a longstanding tradition ...

Bob, congratulations on the addition to your growing home museum. I can't wait to see them displayed. I recall you contemplating on what kind of cases to purchase, I'm sure you did well. Yes, setting up the displayed will be half the fun. I once set up a display for my school, coin cleaning and bits of ancient coin history.

Thought I'd share a recent pickup. It's from Iran and is dated, I believe, to the early first millennium BC. It is my fifth ex-Arthur M. Sackler Collection vessel.

Among the types of ceramic pitchers used in ancient Iran (and sometimes farther west too, I believe, such as in Anatolia and Crete) were open-spouted varieties, each with a more or less horizontal, open (from above) channel projecting outward to one side.

Sometimes these vessels are referred to as having "bird beak spouts." With some of these open-spouted vessels, the visual reference to bird forms is literal and easy to see. With others, including mine, the reference to avian features is essentially lost as the shapes have become more geometricized. However, even with mine, I think you can easily see the derivation from the more obviously-birdlike vessels.

With all of these, the spout rises from the body in a neck-like form before joining a channel (the "head" and "beak") that extends outward horizontally (or, occasionally, with a slight angle or arch). Sometimes, but not always, a bridge connects the head/beak to the rim. That bridge seems to have evolved from a bird's crest that can be seen on some of the more literal versions. Those with a bridge would, presumably, allow "overflow" liquid to pour into the open channel from the body, although no doubt the majority of liquid would still enter the beak from the neck below. (There is a small, round opening on the floor of the beak's channel, not visible in my pictures, through which liquid would enter from the neck)

My example, which doesn't look very birdlike, is in relatively poor shape with a (thankfully stable) body crack and multiple losses, including to the beak. It measures 9 1/4" wide by 9" high. Below the pics of mine are a couple of reference book diagrams of some varieties of bird beak vessels from NW Iran, and a number of much prettier (than mine) Iranian vessels from various websites.

Very cool addition to your wonderful collection.