An intact buff pottery askos, Luristan, North Iran, circa 8th Century B.C....

An intact buff pottery askos,

Luristan, North Iran, circa 8th Century B.C.

with convex upper body, flat base and funnel neck with thickened out-turned rim and two pierced lug handles, painted with geometric designs in red ochre consisting of triangles arranged in a quatrefoil star formation and hatched ladder-like bands, over a cream ground, 16.5cm. high

Provenance:

UK private collection; acquired by the vendor in 1963 in Iran.

Published:

S. Middleton, A Preliminary Identification and Tentative Chronology for A Small Collection of Ceramics from Iran (Oxford 1999), no. 20.

Regina Krahl, China Without Dragons: Rare Pieces from Oriental Ceramic Society, (CA Book Publishing 2020), no. 7, p. 30.

This flask is a rare example of a type of pottery excavated at Baba Jan Tepe, Luristan (Tepe Baba Jan III type), although no other flask of this type appears to have been found at the site. See C. Goff , Luristan in the First Half of the First Millennium B.C., (Iran, vol. 6 1968, vol. 7 1969; vol. 16, 1978), for information on this site.