Iberian vase, IV-I centuries B.C.

Iberian vase; IV-I centuries B.C.
Pottery worked on a potter's wheel. Oxidizing firing and painted.
In very good state of preservation. It has undergone a process of cleaning and consolidation.
Measurements: 22,5 cm.
Closed ceramic vessel of cylindrical body that narrows slightly towards the base, slightly strangled neck with exvasado edge and thickened and rounded lip. It has painted decoration in wine-red and orange colors, with motifs of horizontal bands of different widths. The shapes of the first Iberian ceramics were made imitating imported Phoenician and Greek ones, but later the Iberians developed native forms. Among this varied repertoire of vessels, one of the most abundant, and the most characteristic for its genuinely indigenous form, is the calato (from the Greek Kalathos), commonly called the "top hat". The calathos was usually used as a container to store products such as honey, dried fruits or garum, but it was also used for religious and ritual purposes, as can be deduced from some of its decorative themes with symbolic content and the inscriptions on some examples, as well as its presence in cemeteries as a cinerary urn.