Bowl decorated with linked ibex horns

This hemispherical bowl with a ring base is made of a fine red clay. The inside is decorated with four registers of a repeating patter of curves suggesting the attenuated body of an ibex and its curved horns. The bowl was made by hand, and possibly finished on a slow wheel.

This bowl comes from a site in the area of Tehran called Cheshmeh Ali, near a freshwater spring, where the earliest permanent settlement dates to 6000-5500 B.C. Excavations conducted at the site in 1934-1936 uncovered distinctive orange-reddish pottery painted with designs in dark brown or black. This type of pottery, now called ‘Cheshmeh Ali ware,’ is found throughout northern Iran, and dates to the Transitional Chalcolithic period, ca. 5300-4300 B.C. Though often geometric, the decorations sometimes include animal imagery, such as the ibex horns on this bowl. The ibex is a distinctly Iranian motif, as they are native to the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, but did not live, for example, on the plains of Mesopotamia. Thus they are a marker of the unique, mountain identity of the people living in central Iran at the dawn of the Chalcolithic age. Indeed, this vessel is one of the earliest images of an ibex from Iran, and thus stands at the beginning of a long tradition of depicting this iconic animal.

It is unknown what this bowl was used for. The small size suggests individual use, rather than as a serving vessel, and the ring base allowed it to be set on a flat surface, such as a table or floor. Presumably, then, it was a vessel for eating or drinking, though probably only on special occasions, given its elaborate decorations.