Lot Essay
This jar is highly unusual in having decorative ornamentation in the form of cross-hatched panels, ladder-pattern and a bird frieze appearing together on a single jar. A wavy-handled jar in Munich (Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst, AS 1816) has birds and cross-hatching only, while a bird-shaped vessel in Cairo Museum (Journal d'entrée 26638) has birds and ladder-pattern. Also, cf. W. Needler, Predynastic and Archaic Egypt in The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, 1984, p. 211, pl. 18, no. 65 for the only other known jar of this shape; the Brooklyn example having linear decoration.