Clay cylindrical jar with two handles and painted decoration

An image of Vessel/Jar. Clay jar, cylindrical, with two handles and vine-leaf, female faces, fish and dot decoration, in red, yellow, black and white. Production Place/Find Spot: Egypt, Nubia. On the shoulder is a vine-leaf motif and on the body are rows of faces, fish, blobs and bands. This type of colourful pottery is typical of that made in Nubia, in particular Meroe during the Roman period. the frontal faces are a typical motif and it has been suggested that here they represent women because their skin is painted pinkish-shite as was the convention for women. Some of the faces are less carefully executed, one is without any pupils for the eyes and several have blurred outlines. the faces have been painted in the following sequence: the yellow on white background first, then the facial features in black and finally a red outline. It has been suggested that the line accross the forehead is a tribal mark; it could also represent a disk worn by the goddess Hathor. This vessel is a vibrant mix of Roman, Nubian and Egyptian motifs. The clay is Nile silt. Clay, wheelmade, painted, height 0.341 m, width 0.212 m, AD 1-100. Roman Period.

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

Vessel/Jar. Clay jar, cylindrical, with two handles and vine-leaf, female faces, fish and dot decoration, in red, yellow, black and white. Production Place/Find Spot: Egypt, Nubia. On the shoulder is a vine-leaf motif and on the body are rows of faces, fish, blobs and bands. This type of colourful pottery is typical of that made in Nubia, in particular Meroe during the Roman period. the frontal faces are a typical motif and it has been suggested that here they represent women because their skin is painted pinkish-shite as was the convention for women. Some of the faces are less carefully executed, one is without any pupils for the eyes and several have blurred outlines. the faces have been painted in the following sequence: the yellow on white background first, then the facial features in black and finally a red outline. It has been suggested that the line accross the forehead is a tribal mark; it could also represent a disk worn by the goddess Hathor. This vessel is a vibrant mix of Roman, Nubian and Egyptian motifs. The clay is Nile silt. Clay, wheelmade, painted, height 0.341 m, width 0.212 m, AD 1-100. Roman Period.

Image data

Accession Number: E.P.16
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/32.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Katie Young
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 769 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 554.29kB
Exposure time: 1/250
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 32/1

Key words

1st Century AD African Ancient Egypt antiquity clay cylindrical dots Egyptian faces female fish Fitz_ANT handled handles jar motif motifs Nubian painted pottery Roman spots thrown two handled two-handled vessel vine leaf vine leaves vines wheel thrown

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Clay cylindrical jar with two handles and painted decoration"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-843232870 Accessed: 2024-11-25 22:38:28

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-843232870
            |title=Clay cylindrical jar with two handles and painted decoration
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-25 22:38:28|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-213773

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/ant/ant49/E_P_16_1_201510_kly25_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Clay jar"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Clay cylindrical jar with two handles and painted decoration</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>