Vessels & Pottery Artifacts

A Zulu beer pot, burnished black and passed hand to hand. Antique vessels and pottery here come from Africa, Asia and the Americas, in clay, wood, metal, stone and glass. Djenne terra cotta vessels from Mali date roughly to the 12th through 17th centuries, and Song dynasty stoneware from the Cizao kilns of Fujian was raised from a shipwreck. Zulu ukhamba vessels hold sorghum beer for ceremonies and gatherings, and Sawos potters of the Sepik in Papua New Guinea made sago bowls and storage jars.

There are Chinese wine and storage jars from Shanxi, Shandong and Jiangxi, Indian brass holy water vessels, Javanese kendi and rice pounding vessels, milk vessels from Uganda, a Chancay effigy vessel from Peru, and Dogon, Gurunsi, Teke and Makonde vessels. Subcategories sort them into ceramic and glass, metal, stone, terra cotta and wood. Fill a storage jar with branches by the door or let a bowl stand empty on a table. A container with nothing to prove.