Stonework, Αrtefacts

Cycladic collar jar

3200-2800 BC (Early Cycladic Ι period)

White marble

H. 26 cm

Collection Number Δ 1158

The Cyclades have abundant sources of high-quality marble. Their exploitation has started already in the Neolithic era, but became systematic in the Early Bronze Age. The artisans worked marble not with metal tools but with traditional stone hammers and rubbers, and with points made of emery or obsidian.

The collar jar was one of the most complex vessel types produced in the Cyclades. It had tall and wide neck, spherical body with thick walls, and narrow conical foot. The internal cavity was carved with a traditional bow-drill, which had a stone borer. Traces of the rotating movement of the drill are still visible in the interior walls. The vase had four pierced lug-handles, which were used for transportation.

Collar jars occur mostly in tombs, however the traces of use-wear (e.g. in the lug-handles) suggest that they were functional before being deposited in the grave. They production seems to have ceased at the end of the Early Cycladic I period.

PUBLICATION
– Brouskari M.M. 1981. ‘Collection Paul Canellopoulos (XVI). Antiquités cycladiques’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 105, 1981. 499-535, esp. 516-517.
– Venieri Y. 2006. Catalogue no. 6, in Choremi-Spetsieri Α. – Zarkadas Α. (eds), Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum. Ancient Art, Athens, 24.