Truly utilitarian in its design, yet delightfully elegant in its simplicity, this three handled vessel may have served as a cooking pot or a storage jar for a shepherd during the millennium prior to the Israelite patriarchs. It is eminently sturdy, and strives to contain as much as its owner requires. As we hold it in our hands today, admiring its simple beauty, we are aware of the touch of other hands long ago. Who might have held it when it was new? Were the dreams and emotions that guided their lives so very different from our own? The vessel's graceful unadorned shape appeals as much to the contemporary eye as it did to the culture that created it. Such artifacts, ordinary enough in their own age, connect us in an intimate way with the world of the past. In its presence, the centuries melt away and the imagination sets out on a journey of discovery. - (SP.251)

Antiquities
Ancient Near East