Pitcher decorated with ibexes

This pitcher has a globular body with a narrow neck and an everted rim. A tubular spout emerges from the body at a roughly forty-five degree angle. A semicircular handle is attached to the rim. It is made of a buff clay with red-brown painted decorations, including parallel lines on the spout, dots around the rim, and a row of stylized ibexes on the body. The ibexes have lozenge-shaped bodies, legs, tails and penises indicated by straight lines, and necks, heads and horns represented by curved lines. The pitcher is handmade, but probably finished on a wheel.

The distinctive painted decoration on this pitcher marks it as ‘genre Luristan ware.’ This type of pottery was first discovered by looters at Tepe Giyan, about five miles southwest of modern Nehavand, Iran. It has also been found at Mauyilbak Tepe and Baba Jan Tepe, both near Nurabad in Lorestan Province, Iran. At all three of these sites it comes from Iron Age graves, so it is unclear if this type of pottery was only used in funerary rituals, or if it also played a role in daily life. The shape of the pitcher, with its deep body and long spout, would have prevented dregs from ending up in the cup, suggesting that it may have been used to pour wine. Winemaking is attested at Godin Tepe (32 miles [52 km] north of Baba Jan) as early as ca. 3000 B.C.

The ibex is a distinctly Iranian motif, as they are native to the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, but did not live, for example, on the plains of Mesopotamia. Thus they are a marker of the unique, mountain identity of the people living in western Iran during the Iron Age.