A MINOAN CHLORITE 'BIRD'S NEST' BOWL MIDDLE MINOAN I, CIRCA 2160-1800 B.C.

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A MINOAN CHLORITE 'BIRD'S NEST' BOWL, CRETE, MIDDLE MINOAN I, CIRCA 2160-1800 B.C. Of squat globular form, the wide body tapering to a small flat base and rising to a sharply inturned shoulder, the mouth recessed within a broad flat rim and hollowed to a deep cylindrical cavity. The dark chlorite stone displays a mottled greenish-black surface, with lighter grey-green inclusions visible across the upper body and interior. Two roughly circular patches of pale earthen deposit remain adhered to the shoulder, and a broad band of calcareous encrustation covers the lower body, preserving the object's burial history on its surface. The form belongs to the class known to scholarship as 'bird's nest' bowls, so called for the compact rounded profile and the small, deeply hollowed interior set within a comparatively massive body. The type is characterised by its economy of design: the walls are thick relative to the small central cavity, and the outline is defined entirely by the swelling curve of the shoulder and the tight recess of the rim. No incised or relief decoration is present, the aesthetic residing wholly in the proportions and in the natural figure of the stone. Chlorite, a soft dark stone worked with abrasives and hand-drills, was among the preferred materials of the Minoan stone-vase industry that emerged on Crete during the third millennium B.C. Its dark colour, capacity to take a soft lustrous polish, and workability made it suitable for small closed forms of this kind, and quarries in eastern Crete supplied workshops across the island. Bird's nest bowls in chlorite, serpentine, and steatite are recovered in significant numbers from tholos tombs of the Mesara plain and from settlement contexts of the Prepalatial and early Protopalatial periods, where they appear to have served as containers for cosmetics, pigments, or unguents. Their frequent recovery in funerary deposits suggests a role as personal possessions carried into the tomb, the small cavity retaining traces of the substance once held within. The 'bird's nest' bowl represents one of the most enduring and characteristic products of the Minoan stone-vase tradition, produced with little variation across several centuries and forming a diagnostic type for the Prepalatial to early Protopalatial transition. This example, with its compact silhouette, dark polished chlorite body, and heavy calcareous accretion, exemplifies the form in its most typical realisation and preserves clear evidence of its funerary or votive deposition. Dimensions: Diameter: 5.5cm; Height: 3.5cm

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