China, Neolithic period, Yangshao culture, Banpo phase, 4800 - 3300 BC
Diameter: 8 inches, 20.3 cm
Height: 4 7/8 inches, 12.5 cm

A plain pottery bowl, the thinly potted, deeply rounded sides rising from a flat base with concave centre and curving slightly inward toward the rim. The pottery is of a rich reddish-brown colour. Around the rim on the exterior is a broad band of slightly deeper-toned pigment. The exterior displays an overall smooth matte texture.

This elegant bowl of restrained simplicity is similar to an example excavated in Banocum, a Shaanxi province, now in the British Museum.1 Evidence from excavation at sites around Banpo suggests that bowls such as this example were sometimes used as lids to funerary urns.2 Another similar bowl is in the Sze Hong Collection.3

1 - Vainker, S.J. Chinese Pottery and Porcelain from Prehistoric to the Present, British Museum Publications, London 1991, plate 1 pp. 12-13
2 - White, J.M. and Otsuka, R.Y. Pathways to the Afterlife, Early Chinese Art from the Sze Hong Collection, Denver Art Museum, 1993, p. 21
3 - op. cit. plate 3, p. 21