vessel
- Museum number
- ML.2633
- Description
-
Handmade tripartite carinated pottery vessel with deep conical rim. Glossy burnished finish with incised geometric decoration. The decoration consists of combined single strokes and inlaid colour; parallel grooves define panels of seven offset repeats on rim and shoulder of motif comprising four crosses divided by one stripe and defined on each side by three. Red pigment (probably haematite) survives in some grooves, possibly alternating with white.
- Production date
- 500 BC - 400 BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 182 millimetres (rim, approx)
-
Height: 187 millimetres (approx)
-
Weight: 652 grammes
- Curator's comments
- Stead and Rigby 1999
Found in an inhumation cemetery at Marson, Marne, France.
Repaired. The antiquity of the pigments is dubious despite being shown in the original illustration.
Context:
Tripartite carinated vessels: The vessel comprises three straight-sided sections in different planes meeting at two angles. Radiography has confirmed that a sharply angled jar found at Marson (ML.2644) was made with a definite luted seam at the shoulder carination, the implication being that the overall tripartite shape was achieved by making vessels in three separate sections. The basic shape allowed potters to experiment with proportion and detail which resulted in a great diversity of shapes and sizes, only some of which are represented in the Morel Collection. Criteria for sub-groups are comparative depth of the rim, shoulder and body sections; configuration of the rim; and configuration of the lower body. Examples are ordered by size. They range from Hallstatt C/D to La Tène I. The tripartite shape was current in Hallstatt C burials at 'la Ferme Rouge' Court-St-Etienne, Belgium (Mariën, M.E., 1958, ‘Trouvailles du champ d’urnes et des tombelles hallstattiennes de Court-Saint-Etienne’ (Monographies d’Archéologie Nationale, 1) Brussels, figs 15, no. 12, and 26, no. 27). Probably the most characteristic vessel form in burials of the mid-fifth to the mid-fourth century BC in the Champagne region.
Variant with deep conical rim and narrower shoulder: Graves at Tinqueux (grave 21), Les Jogasses (grave 58) and Jonchery-sur-Vesle (grave 4, with a Hallstatt D dagger) contained some of the earliest examples dating to the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC. Probably the most common and widely recorded tripartite variant. Most sizes more or less follow the proportions of height equals 1 to 1.5 times the rim diameter. A number of miniature versions are remarkably standardized in shape and size, suggesting that they were perhaps made by the same potter. They were found in different cemeteries, Bergères-les-Vertus, La Croix-en-Champagne, Marson and Prosnes, but the most distant sites are less than 20 km apart.
Bibliography: Morel, L., 1898, ‘La Champagne souterraine’ Reims, pl. 4, fig. 3, pl. 41, fig. 23, and text, p. viii; Smith, R.A., 1925, ‘A guide to the antiquities of the Early Iron Age’ (second edition), London, pl. 5, 7.
- Location
- On display (G50/dc9)
- Acquisition date
- 1901
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- ML.2633
