Holyland Deir Samit, Judea Terracotta Bilbil Jug

Deir Samit, Judea, Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500–1250 BCE. The delicate ring-base vessel has a bulbous body, slender cylindrical neck, applied strap handle, and out-turned funnel rim, its surface adorned with tan geometric bands and vertical striations over an umber-toned ground, in the manner of Cypriot White Painted Ware. This class of imported juglet, popularly called a "bilbil," was traded throughout Canaan and the Judean hills during the Late Bronze Age, its striated poppy-head silhouette long associated with the trade of scented oils and, as chemical analyses of some examples suggest, opium.

Vessels of this type functioned as containers for precious liquids, perfumed oils, unguents, or opiates, and were prized enough to be widely exported from Cyprus into the Holyland, where they are recovered from Late Bronze Age tombs and settlement sites.

Size: 9 1/2 inches (24.1 cm) in height. Condition: intact, a good deal of earth encrustation,  with a fine ancient patina.

Cf. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, for a closely related Cypriot Base-ring "bilbil" jug from the Hebron area, Late Bronze Age, 1550–1400 BCE (Louis and Carmen Warschaw Collection).

Provenance: Ex prominent New York collector Daryl Kulak, acquired early 2000s