Ancient Asia Minor, Western Anatolia, Yortan culture, Early Bronze Age II, ca. 2700 to 2400 BCE. A fine gathering of three wheel-thrown blackware pottery vessels with highly burnished surfaces and incised decorations. Each vessel has a round but stable base, a spherical body with a sloped shoulder, and a thick handle, with the smaller vessel bearing a rounded spout with a slanted lip, and the two larger vessels with projecting cylindrical spouts with rounded lips. The exterior of each body displays registers of lightly incised zigzagging motifs that stretch from just above the base to just below the spout. Size of largest: 9.4" W x 12.75" H (23.9 cm x 32.4 cm); 14.75" H (37.5 cm) on included custom stand.

Ancient Western Anatolia is famous for a number of large ruins, most notably Troy (Hisarlik), but many mysteries remain. The Yortan culture is known through a burial site in the valley of Bakir Cai that has not been well-studied. Adults and children are buried, crouched, in large terracotta storage containers; around them were placed a great deal of pottery in the form of jugs, jars, and occasionally bowls, much of it blackware just like these examples.

For a stylistically similar example of the smaller vessel, please see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 62.114.2; for an example similar to the larger vessels, see accession number 62.153.

Provenance: private Virginia, USA collection

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#150320

Medium-sized vessel has repairs to spout and handle, with stabilization to one fissure along lower body, and chipping and light adhesive residue along break lines; smallest and largest vessels are intact and very good. All three vessels have abrasions and nicks to spouts, handles, bodies, and bases, with light softening to incised motifs, fading to areas of original black coloration, and encrustations. Great earthen deposits and traces of original black color throughout.