Object Image

Beaker with a checkerboard design

Burials in the large cemetery at the important site of Susa in southwestern Iran have yielded a great number of very finely made vessels in the shape of tall, flaring cups, usually called beakers. Like much of the pottery from Iran in the Chalcolithic Period (ca. 5500-3000 B.C.), this piece is very skillfully made, with thin walls and highly-fired, fine clay. It may have been created or finished using a tournette, the precursor to the potter’s wheel, which is a flat disc balanced on a central pivot that can be spun with one hand while the other hand is used to smooth and shape a pot in the center of the wheel. The beaker is decorated with a combination of geometric designs painted in dark brown...
c. early to mid-4th millennium B.C.
Ceramic
20.0 x 18.5cm
48.98.9
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection