Vessel. Halaf culture. Mesopotamia, 6000-5000 BC.
Terracotta.
Good condition except for the missing upper lip.
Provenance: Private collection, Monte Carlo, Monaco. Possibly from Tall Chagar Bazar.
Biblografia: Mallowan M E L 1936a / The excavations at Tall Chagar Bazar,
and an archaeological survey of the Harbur regions.
Measurements: 12.5 cm (diameter).
The Halaf culture (ca. 5500-4600 BC) of northern Mesopotamia, named after the site of Tell Halaf (Syria), developed after the Hassuna culture. It was a society with an agricultural and livestock-raising economy whose most significant material production was pottery. This pottery is characterised by open vessels, some with feet, and bowls with profuse geometric painted decoration, polychromed in the final phase, and some plant and animal motifs. Female statuettes, amulets and clay seals were also produced. The early Halaf phase developed only in the Khabur basin, a tributary of the Euphrates in northern Mesopotamia, but later its pottery has appeared over a wide area from the Mediterranean to the Zagros Mountains in a process linked to extensive obsidian exchange networks.