3rd-2nd millennium BC. A cylindrical vessel with alabaster body, the broad base and mouth carved out of black stone; the body decorated with rows of white and dark red inlaid roundels, the bigger circlets with central black dots; the neck decorated with similar large roundels with central black dots and circumferential banding; the base decorated with eight concentric circles surrounding a central larger inlaid circle; the white inlays are a calcium phosphate material, which may be bone or ivory; an old collector's sticker to base. See Tokyo National Museum, Syrian Antiquities, Tokyo, 1977, fig.91, for a cup decorated in the same style; Abbas, A., ‘Reflections on the long-term socioeconomic and political development in the Ram Hormoz Plain, a highland-lowland buffer zone’ in AMIT, 2015, pp.113-148; for discussion on Elamite Pottery see Alvarez-Mon, J., Basello G.P. and Wicks, Y., The Elamite World, London and New York, 2018. 1 kg, 11.5cm (4 1/2"). Property of a London gentleman; before that in the private collection of a Kensington collector; acquired from an important London W1, gallery; previously acquired 1970s-1980s; accompanied by an archaeological expertise of Dr. Raffaele D’Amato; this lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by AIAD certificate number no.10768-178134. The common proto-Elamite ceramic from Ra¯m Hormuz is made of bricky red ware, occasional sand in paste, fine chaff inclusion, pale brown streaky wash on the external side, red wash inner rim, and decorated with white and dark brown triangles, white bands and brown polka dots on white surface. The dotted ornamentation is common with our cup but the quality is different. Alabaster cups with incised decoration were rare and extremely high-status items. [A video of this lot can be viewed on the Timeline Auctions website]

Fine condition.