Northern Italy, Villanovan culture, ca. 800 to 700 BCE. A fine example of the classic artifact left behind by this elusive culture, this is a large, two-part grey ware urn. The lower half is a tall vessel with a bulging body and neck, a flared rim, and horizontal loop handles on its shoulder. The body has repeated incised geometric motifs - meanders around the neck and x's within concentric squares around the upper body. The upper half is a conical lid topped by a sprinkler-like finial ending in a nipple. The regularly-spaced perforations around this finial and the base of the lid may have once had some organic matter like string or feather woven through them that is now lost. The surface of the lid shares the repeated geometric motifs incised around its body. Both are made of grey impasto, a coarse earthenware that is a precursor to Etruscan Bucchero. Size of lid: 8.75" W x 9.6" H (22.2 cm x 24.4 cm); size of base: 11.5" W x 15.5" H (29.2 cm x 39.4 cm)

The Villanovans inhabited Italy during the early Iron Age, and much of what we know of them comes from excavations of cemeteries (the first at the modern day town of Villanova near Bologna in northern Italy) where they cremated their dead and buried them in pottery urns just like this one with a very distinctive, conical shape. On these urns, Villanovans incised geometric motifs using a comb-like tool.

Provenance: private Carlton collection, Los Angeles, California, USA

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#122063

On the larger half, one handle is lost and there is a chip from the rim. Both halves have been repaired from large pieces, with repairs difficult to see.