Bowl

This object is one of the oldest pieces of pottery from the Middle East in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities. It is a hand-made, polished bowl with a reddish-orange layer of slip. The tasteful and detailed black painting on the inside is striking. Stylised plant twigs radiate in a star to the rim, with images of ibexes with their long curved horns in between. Ibexes were frequently depicted on pottery from the ancient Near East. These animals are fast and agile and exude abundant energy, besides which their horns are immediately recognisable, of course, and easy to depict with fairly simple lines.