On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

Marble bowl

Cycladic

ca. 2700–2400/2300 BCE

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 171

Technical Analysis: Ultraviolet-induced visible luminescence examination, optical microscopy

This nearly complete, relatively deep marble bowl consists of a clearly defined rolled rim and a flat base. The exterior of the rim is undercut by a smooth groove. The bowl’s original smoothed surface is well-preserved. Its size allows its assignment to the deep bowl type and the formation of its rim to Gavalas’s subvariety C.(1) L.2022.38.93 seems to be of comparable size. There are two bonded fragments and a fill at the rim, as well as three cracks that run down from the rim and one along its outer edge. The surface is noticeably free of accretion, but highly weathered.

Georgios Gavalas and Wendy Walker

(1) See Gavalas, Giorgos. 2018. “The Stone Vessels” in C. Renfrew, O. Philaniotou, N. Brodie, G. Gavalas and M.J. Boyd, eds. The Sanctuary on Keros and the Origins of Aegean Ritual Practice, Vol. III: The Marble Finds from Kavos and the Archaeology of Ritual, McDonald Institute Monographs, pp. 263-64 and pp. 269-73, fig. 4.3. This type of vessel is discussed by Getz-Gentle, Pat. 1996. The Stone Vessels of the Cyclades in the Early Bronze Age. pp. 99-105, pl. 50-55, University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. See pl. 50 d for the closest parallel in size.