Halaf potters far surpassed their predecessors and successors in the embellishment and delicacy of their designs and the fine quality of the pottery itself. The background is often, as here, a buff color with red and black decoration produced on the vessel from the same iron oxide pigment, technically a very advanced achievement. This fragment of a vessel with slightly flaring rim has the exterior painted with parts of two black-outlined metopes, one with a red rosette, the other with a red design outlined in black, on light buff ground. A red band decorates the interior rim.

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