Ancient ceramic vessel??

[pierre_p77]

Anyone has any idea as to what this might be? Origin? How old?

Regards

[SC]

Any information on size and place/region of origin?

I know very little about ancient pottery but it looks superficially similar to pieces I have seen in the Middle east (and adverstised on Israeli dealers' sites) as "juglets" circa 1000BC.  As the term juglets indicates those items were quite small.

Shawn

[pierre_p77]

Shawn: thanks for the reply. The size is 11,5 cm high and 8 cm wide, so it´s quite smal.
/Pierre

[slokind]

At that size, I'd call it a plain aryballos, probably Classical period, but I don't know which pottery center to assign it to.  Pat L.

[SC]

I looked through one my of Middle Eastern catalogues and the form (lip, handle arrangment, button on bottom) is exactly like the Tel el-Yahudiyeh type clay juglet, middle bronze age Israel, 1730-1550 BC.  They seem to range from 17.5 to 9.0 cm tall.   

Some were brown-grey-red fabric with simple comb decoration in registers with chevrons or parallel lines.  Other were plain with red or light yellow slip.

There might be later classical era equivalents too as Slokind notes, but it is certainly an exact match for the Tel -el-Yehudiyeh type.

Did it come from a Israel or "holy land" dealer?

Shawn

[slokind]

Since the Greeks in the 10-7cBCE borrowed that shape from the Eastern Mediterranean, I willingly yield to someone who has a book for Tell el Judeideh (which maybe is the same place).  Whether it is MBA or later, made for a Greek trading colony or for autochthonous town, I could not tell, and it might need personal examination by someone who's participated in excavations there.   Only, I don't think it's late.
Pat L.

[pierre_p77]

Pat and Shawn: thank you for your help! Now that I have some indications as to wht it might be I had tryed the Internet for information. Ofcourse it is possible that it needs personal examination as Pat suggests, but it does have a very strong resemblance to the Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware. Compare for instave the pic bellow, that I borrowed from this site

http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/pottery/tellyahu.html

Some information here too

http://www.archaeowiki.org/Tell_el-Yehudiyeh_Ware

Regards
/Pierre

[SC]

Pat has hit the nail on the head.  Needs expert examination.  Just because it could pass at initial inspection for a Tel el-Yehudiya type doesn't mean that the same features were not in use by others hundreds of years later.  Anyway it gives you a research start.  Any thought of getting it properly cleaned to see if there is decoration under?

[slokind]

But that rotello work applied in groups to make an overall zigzag pattern is, I think, decisive.  Not that I've even been at a Near Eastern excavation.
Pat L.