The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 22, 2024

Decorated Jar with Boat Scenes

Decorated Jar with Boat Scenes

c. 3300–3100 BCE
(5000–2950 BCE), Naqada IIc–d (3650–3300 BCE)
marl clay pottery
Diameter: 28.2 cm (11 1/8 in.); Diameter of mouth: 15.2 cm (6 in.); Overall: 32 cm (12 5/8 in.)
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1914.639
Location: 107 Egyptian

Description

The decoration painted on this jar shows two multi-oared boats traveling through fertile riverbanks lined with trees and aloe bushes. Rows of triangles indicate the desert hills in the background. The Nile was Egypt’s primary means of transportation and communication, since river traffic was far more efficient than travel by land. The concept of boat travel permeated all aspects of Egyptian life and religion. The sun god Ra was believed to travel by boat across the heavens by day and through the underworld by night. Funerary texts describe the trip to the afterlife as a journey by boat, and scenes of boats figured prominently in tomb decoration.
  • Probably Upper Egypt. Purchased from Mohammed Mohasseb, Luxor, by Lucy Olcott Perkins through Henry W. Kent, 14 May 1913
  • Brewer, Douglas J. Ancient Egypt: The Origins. 2005. p. 20.
    Wamberg, Jacob, and Gaye Kynoch. Landscape As World Picture: Tracing Cultural Evolution in Images. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009. pp. 113.
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Martha L. Carter. Egyptian Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: The Museum, 1963. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 3 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Jenifer Neils. The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Museum in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: p 4, fig. 4
    Finkenstaedt, Elizabeth. "Prehistoric Egyptian Pottery." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 3 (1988). p. 88 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 2 archive.org
    Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999 Reproduced: p. 109-110; Mentioned: p. 109-111
  • Untitled Exhibition. Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 13-November 9, 1973).
    CMA 1916, no. 97, p. 214, pl. 341; CMA 1982, no. 4 (entry by Arielle P. Kozloff)
  • {{cite web|title=Decorated Jar with Boat Scenes|url=false|author=|year=c. 3300–3100 BCE|access-date=22 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1914.639