Askos in the Shape of a Deer
Unknown · Middle Cypriot III, circa 1725 to 1600 BC
A pottery vessel modelled as a deer, sixteen centimetres high, standing on four legs with a spout rising from its back. The potter shaped the body by hand, coated it in a pale slip and then drew the animal's markings in dark paint and incised lines. Look for the eyes, the ears and the way the painted stripes wrap around the barrel-shaped body. Vessels of this kind are called askoi, and the deer's hollow body held liquid that was poured through the spout, so the animal was both a container and a toy-like figure.
The museum classifies the ware as White Painted five, a type made on Cyprus in the last phase of the Middle Bronze Age, between about seventeen twenty-five and sixteen hundred BC. It was purchased in eighteen sixty-nine, and an old entry record suggests it may have come from Dali, the ancient Idalion, in the centre of the island. Animal-shaped vases were favourite grave offerings in Cypriot tombs, and their playful forms contrast with the more serious pots beside them. The deer is in good condition, so you can appreciate how the potter combined function with an evident pleasure in the animal's shape.
Did You Know? An askos is a pouring vessel named after the Greek word for a wineskin, and Cypriot potters loved to give them animal bodies.
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