Vessel from the Halaf culture. Mesopotamia, 6000-5000 BC.
Terracotta.
Provenance: private collection, Monte Carlo, Monaco.
In good state of preservation, except that part of the spout is missing and a small fragment has been glued on.
Measurements: 10 cm (height).
The Halaf culture (ca. 5500-4600 BC) of northern Mesopotamia is named after the site of Tell Halaf (Syria), which developed after the Hassuna culture. It was a society with an agricultural and livestock-raising economy whose most significant material production was pottery. This culture produced vases, 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.