Double Vase with Boat and Plant Decoration

Two small jars joined at the body and made as a single piece, this vessel comes from the Naqada II period in Egypt, in the centuries before 3200 BC, before writing and before the first pharaohs. Its clay is a pale, pinkish marl, quite unlike the dark Nile mud used for everyday pots, and the decoration is laid on in purplish-brown paint. On the better-preserved jar a large plant rises with long arching leaves. On the broken one, part of a boat survives above rows of wavy lines that stand for water, with a band of small Z-shaped strokes higher up.

Boats are the commonest subject on painted pottery of this time, and the same kind of boat appears on the wall of Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, the oldest painted tomb known in Egypt. Pots of this decorated ware were mostly placed in graves. The Louvre bought this one in 1899.