A clay vessel
approx. 5000 – 4800 B.C.
Kobylany, Pod Słupami Cave
Maximum diameter: 133mm
The vessel on display is a hemispherical bowl manually fashioned in clay. The external surface was polished and covered with incisions forming a rich geometrical pattern. It was probably used for food consumption rather than preparation. The vessel was decorated with precision and skill. It may suggest it was an element of a decorative ‘table set’. Geometrical patterns decorating vessels from that period may have been their makers’ trademarks. One may suppose that they used similar ornaments to decorate their bodies, dwellings, and objects of daily use. The described vessel originates from the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. It was found in Kobylany, in the Pod Słupami Cave in 1879. It is the oldest vessel of this type in the Polish territories.
A clay vessel from the Neolithic period, approx. 5000 five hundred years before Christ. A hemispherical bowl manually fashioned from clay, 10 (ten) centimetres tall with the diameter of 13 centimetres in the widest place.
The rim of the vessel was folded slightly inwards. A geometrical ornament engraved in clay runs around the vessel. The upper part of the ornament consists of four horizontal dashes placed one under another, separated with traces of several vertical incisions. The lower part is a repetitive pattern of three downward-curved arcs, also separated with vertical dashes.
The colouring of the bowl takes on different hues ranging from dark brown through to beige. The external surface of the vessel is smooth as a result of polishing. The ornament was delicately engraved with a stick or a bone implement in still soft clay. Vessels were fired in hearths covered with brushwood. This is the cause of differences in the colouring. The spots where oxygen had penetrated are brighter.
Elaborate workmanship indicates that the bowl was an element of a decorative set.
The vessel originates from the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland (the Polish Jurassic Highland). It was found in Kobylany, in the Pod Słupami Cave in 1879. It is the oldest vessel of this type in Polish territories.