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This is an excellent example of an earthenware carinated flagon made in a Roman-Empire ceramic production center in the Roman-North-Africa territory called Africa-Proconsularis. The word flagon is derived from the Greek word for flask and is a larger, taller variant of a Greek flask used for oils (lagynos). Wheel made for the lower classes, undecorated…
This kiln-fired medium size earthenware platter is a wheel made functional piece called African Red Slip (ARS). A category of ancient pottery used by those of high status for formal occasions to serve food, it was made in Roman-Empire production centers in the Roman-North-Africa province called Africa-Proconsularis. They were shipped everywhere along the same trade…
This ancient wheel-thrown pottery was made in the Greek colonies, Apulia, Magna Graecia in Southeastern Italy and dates from the 4th century B.C.E. Â Magna Graecia is the Roman name for coastal Southern Italy colonized by Greek city-states and first named by the Roman poet Ovid in his poem Fasti. These settlers brought their Hellenic culture,…
A palanquin is a wicker or light wood human-powered mode of transport once used in Asia to carry people, usually for a royal or single person of elite status in Khmer-Empire society. Derived from the Sanskrit word for bed or couch, it is often a covered vehicle without wheels called a litter carried on the…
Stone reliefs or mold made earthenware brick tiles were made for ancestor worship and to decorate doors and the walls of tombs, temples and other structures from the Han Dynasty onwards. As China expanded its trade along the Silk Roads in the Song dynasty, foreign artistic influences began to be seen in the expanded use…
The Song dynasty (960–1279CE) is considered the most culturally brilliant era in later imperial Chinese history. A massive expansion produced government and public buildings and tombs with walls decorated with earthenware unglazed mold made brick tiles. Some were purely decorative and others were wishes for happiness and comfort in live and deceased people’s afterlife called mingqi. With…
Banquet scenes and feasts have been part of Chinese art and culture for millennia. They include celebrations of important rituals and social events, both public and private. These can be religious or social rituals, funerary practices performed by families filling their obligations of filial piety, family fêtes, scenes of scholarly gatherings, casual feasts for couples and…
Chinese belt hooks were worn with the hook end on the wearer’s left and fastened to clothing with a button like bronze piece fixed to the belt’s end. Initially only functional, metalwork belt hooks became a symbol of wealth, high status and power by the Han Dynasty. They were made using a variety of materials…
Unglazed earthenware pottery cocoon jars were used extensively during the Han dynasty as mingqi, items made for placement in tombs to comfort the deceased on their journey to the afterlife. These ancient pottery vessels were ancestral objects, part of ancestor worship, made to revere and honor the deceased, fulfill Chinese duties of filial piety, and have…
Most ethnic Luristan (Lorestan) Iron Age bronzes were small items found in the the Zagros Mountains valleys in Lorestan Province, Western Iran. Other items found included tools, small vessels and horse-fittings, many buried with the deceased as ancestral pieces for use in their afterlife. Although their origin is not certain, they were likely Persians related to…
During the Song Dynasty earthenware unglazed brick tiles made using a mould were produced to decorate inner chamber walls of tombs and government and public buildings. Used as funerary decorations to wish the deceased happiness and comfort in their afterlife, these Song Brick Tiles are another example of a mingqi ancestral item. Without knowledge of…
Although most famous for Christian burials, people of all religions were interred in the catacombs due to a shortage of land and demand for burial space after a switch from cremations to underground burials in the 2nd century A.D. Roman made closed earthenware terracotta lamps became the dominant oil lamp style in the Roman world…
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