Bronze Age European Urnfield Culture Vase

A large earthen-ware vessel with an incised decorative pattern and two lug handles. The buff fabric of the pottery with mica inclusions is indicative of Urnfield vases of the Central European Danube Basin as opposed to those of Gaul or the Po Valley.

Late Bronze Age, Central Europe.
Hallstatt I, Ca. 1300-800 BC.
Height: 5 3/8 in. (16 cm);
Rim chipped, otherwise intact.
Rare.

The inhabitants of Central Europe from Gaul to the Danube Basin in the second millennium BC coalesced into a culture identified in the archaeological record by large well defined cemeteries containing numerous cremation burials contained in cinerary urns. The graves were often accompanied by bronze tools, ornaments and weapons.
By the turn of the first millennium BC, the Urnfield cultural system began to give way to the Hallstatt, suggesting that the Bronze Age peoples of Central Europe were the predecessors of the Celts.

Confer: W. Menghin, Hallstattzeit, (Berlin, 1999) pl. 51, 52; Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts, (Oxford, 1997), chapter 2.

Formerly in an old German private collection, inscribed, "Starke 160; P. Bakimast."

Inv#: 1690

$2,500

Guaranteed Authentic

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