H. 20 7/8 in. (53 cm) Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1959
(59.52) Traditions of making painted pottery flourished in
agricultural villages and nomad camps throughout the Near East
by the Late Neolithic period of the seventh millennium B.C.
These early ceramics were made by hand in a variety of
techniques, including coil, mold, and slab construction, and
served as cooking, serving, and storage vessels. This large
storage jar is a masterpiece of early pottery making. Produced
in the early fourth millennium B.C. on the Iranian plateau, in a
style known from excavations at the site of Tepe Sialk, it is a
large buff-colored jar painted with dark brown designs. The
geometric decoration on the upper portion of the vessel divides
it into three panels. In each of these panels is the stylized
image of an ibex shown in right profile, highlighting the great
arch of its exaggerated horns. The ibex was the most common
motif in prehistoric ceramics of highland Iran, perhaps because
of its symbolic significance as prey t