A Pre-Dynastic Nile-Clay Black Top Vessel, Pre-Dynastic Period, Naqada I, ca. 3600 - 3300 BCE

This is an excellent example of black-topped red pottery of pre-dynastic Amratian design. The vessel stands on a small, flat base tapering outward to a rounded shoulder under a wide mouth with slightly raised lip. The exterior is coated with a thin red iron-oxide wash that was burnished to a lustrous finish. The black top is carbon, produced by subjecting the top of the vessel to the actions of dense smoke. The vessel was made by hand using coil construction (the process is still visible on the inside).

Called B-ware by W.M. Flinders Petrie because of their distinctive black rims, black-topped beakers and bowls made of riverine clay are a hallmark of the Naqada Ic-IIb Period. For very similar examples see: Hayes, William "The Scepter of Egypt, A background study of the Egyptian Antiquities in The Metropolitan Museum of Art" Volume I, Figure 7 page 16; Cleveland Museum "Catalogue of Egyptian Art" 1999 #48; Detroit Institute of Arts, McKissick Museum and the Earth Sciences and Resources Institute of the University of South Carolina,"The First Egyptians", page 52. 

Medium: Clay

Dimensions: Height: 5 1/2 inches (14 cm)

Condition: The vessel is intact and in very good condition overall, a lovely example.

Provenance: Ambassador Allen Clayton Davis (1927 - ) private collection, acquired from the trade in 1992. Accompanied by a copy of the purchase invoice. Ambassador Allen Clayton Davis's diplomatic career in Africa spanned a period of thirty years. Beginning in 1958, he served in Washington, and then he went to Africa for the first time, as a consular/political officer in Liberia. From 1960 through 1965, Davis served in Washington as a desk officer, first for African Affairs, and he was then assigned to the Western European Affairs bureau on the Belgian desk. In 1966, he was sent to Moscow as a political officer, and in 1968, Davis returned to Africa, first for an assignment in Ouagadougou in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) as the deputy chief of mission, and then to Algiers as a political officer and as deputy chief of mission in Senegal and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). In 1980, he was appointed American ambassador to Guinea and in 1983 the American ambassador to Uganda. He returned to Washington in 1985 and was posted to the United Nations to work with the African delegations. He later was sent across the Atlantic to work with the European Command in Stuttgart, which had just been given responsibility for Africa. Upon returning once again to Washington in 1990, Ambassador Davis retired from the U.S. Foreign Service.