A pottery jar, Neolithic period, Machiayao culture from Kansu province
新石器時代陶壺, 甘肅馬家窯文化

4th/3rd millennium BC, China
4 / 3 紀元前, 中國

Height: 17.5cm, 6.9 inches
高 17.5 釐米

The body of this storage vessel is of bulbous form narrowing sharply to a flat circular base, the shoulders narrowing less sharply to a short neck supporting two simple loop handles. The body of the pottery is fine textured light red terracotta, painted in black and maroon with a design of half loops rising at each end to form a triangle between two horizontal lines, and making use of the light red terracotta body as a third colour in the decoration.

The pots were hand built by the coiling method and the finger markings can still be felt on the inside, they were then allowed to dry and the surface burnished leaving a smooth and surprisingly fine body surface for the subsequent decoration.