In the millennium before the patriarch Abraham, this elegant vessel might have held an offering of food or drink. It was perhaps left as a votive offering to win the favor of a powerful deity. Or perhaps it held sauces or condiments to delight the palate and spruce up an otherwise humble meal for a shepherd. 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, we cross the bridge of time and set the imagination on a journey of discovery. - (SP.357)

Antiquities
Ancient Near East