Jar

Earthenware decorated with geometric and figural painted designs  in contrasting colors had a long history in northern and western Iran, appearing before 6000 B.C.E. in the earliest era of pottery-making. Favored decorative schemes consisted of designs painted in black on a red surface, or in red or brown on a pale, buff surface. In the most successful products of the painted styles, the artisan achieved an almost perfect correspondence between shape and decoration. Here, for example, concentric zones of decoration encircle the body, carrying the eye around the vessel and emphasizing its volume.

Several features link this pot closely with examples excavated from the cemetery at Tepe Giyan in western Iran: the globular, carinated shape; the beige slip decorated with brown paint; the arrangement of the decoration in concentric zones; and the repertory of individual motifs (water birds, chevrons, "flame" or "tooth" pattern). The intact condition of the pot also indicates a burial context. Comparisons with examples recovered from the burials at Tepe Giyan, together with information from the settlement excavated at Godin Tepe, suggest a place of manufacture near Tepe Giyan in western Iran and a date of circa 2000 B.C.E.