Urartian Red Polished Ware Chalice

Culture: Urartian

Period: 8th–7th century B.C.

Material: Terracotta

Dimensions: 10.3 cm high

Price: 680 Euro

Ref: 6605

Provenance: Austrian private collection of Prof. Josef Mairitsch (1938–1994), with the inventory no. 39A. Acquired between 1960 and the early 1980s. In the same family collection since then. Accompanied by an old collection note, in which it is wrongly described as Amlash.

Condition: Intact

Description: Elegant chalice of Urartian Red Polished Ware (Toprakkale Ware) with a tall, ribbed foot. The surface is covered with a slip of red clay and is finely polished, possibly with leather. The cup has a globular body, a constricted neck with a circumferential incised zigzag motif (one zigzag playfully extended into a wave band), and a convex wall towards the rim. On the underside of the foot is the maker’s stamp of the pottery workshop, rendered in the form of circular “eye” motifs. Compare with Urartian Red Polished Ware, which was intended to imitate metal and whose vessels were often dedicated as votive offerings in temples: Aylin Ümit Erdem, ‘Urtartian Pottery’, Ege University December 2021, pp. 263–266, as well as the goblets with hollow bases on p. 269 and the manufacturer's stamps on p. 292. See also: Oya San, Urartian Red Burnished Pottery from the Diyarbakir Museum’, p. 77.