Cycladic bowl

Unusually large shallow bowl with rim defined by a groove. Traces of red pigment are preserved over most of the surface. The preservation of pigment on the inside of bowls is a quite common phenomenon. Red is the most frequent colour, but there are also cases in which traces of black, green or deep blue are preserved. Often the entire inside surface of the bowl is covered by solid colour, in which case it can be surmised that the bowl was coloured intentionally. On the contrary, when traces of colour are noted only locally on the interior surface, it seems that the bowl had simply been used for grinding pigments, with the aid of a stone pestle.