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Large Cycladic plate (the 'dove vase')

Unknown"2800-2300 BC" - ""

Museum of Cycladic Art

Museum of Cycladic Art
Athens, Greece

The "dove vase", one of the most elegant creations of Cycladic art, is a large, disc-shaped marble plate with low walls and a row of 16 integral doves carved in the round across the bottom (chisel marks are visible on the sides of the birds). The birds are interpreted as doves, a popular subject in Cycladic art, where it appears in the form of beads, pendants, pinheads and even vases or pyxis handles. The "dove vase" is the largest and best-preserved example of a rare category of marble vessels at present known only from the small island of Keros and specifically the site of Kavos-Daskalio, where fragments of such vases have been found. The presence of the row of birds exactly across the diameter of the bottom obviates a practical function of the vessel. It may have been used for ritual offerings, as some researchers have proposed; its possible provenance from Kavos-Daskalio on Keros corroborates such a view, since we know that at this site objects of symbolic significance were deposited and intentionally broken, most probably in the context of specific rituals.

Details

  • Title: Large Cycladic plate (the 'dove vase')
  • Creator: Unknown
  • Creator Gender: None
  • Date Created: "2800-2300 BC" - ""
  • Provenance: Unknown
  • Physical Dimensions: w390 mm
  • Period: Early Bronze Age
  • Culture: Cycladic
  • Type: dish
  • Rights: N.P. Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Cycladic Art, N.P. Goulandis Collection, no. 329, http://www.cycladic.gr/frontoffice/portal.asp?cpage=NODE&cnode=25&clang=1
  • External Link: Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece
  • Medium: marble

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