Biconical urn

Typology: Biconical urn with rounded shoulders

Class and production: Italian Iron Age

Cultural context: Italy, Este (?)

Date: second half of the 8th century B.C.

Description

Biconical urn with rounded shoulders and large rim. A bronze decoration created using little studs used to decorate the body of this specimen, but it is now entirely lost. However, the vessel still preserves a series of impressions where the stubs were fixed that help to reconstruct the original decoration pattern. This kind of vessel was common in the territory of the ancient town of Atheste (now Este, near Padua, Italy) and was used as funerary urn. The same type was rare in Padua.

Materials and techniques: impasto/ wheelmade/ slip coating/ smoothing

Dimensions: height 27.7 cm, rim diameter 20.5 cm

Provenance: Mantova Benavides Collection, Padua; Vallisneri Collection, Padua

University of Padua, Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art

Cat. Number: MB119

Bibliography

• Inventario 1695, Andrea Mantova Benavides. Inventario delle antichità di casa Mantova Benavides. 1695, edito a cura di Irene Favaretto, in “Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova”, LXI, 1972 (1978), n. 1-2, n. 375.
• Calzavara Capuis Loredana, Vasi paleoveneti: il concetto di antichità preromane nella cultura padovana del Cinquecento, in Marco Mantova Benavides il suo museo e la cultura padovana del Cinquecento, Atti della giornata di studio nel IV centenario della morte 1582-1982 (Padova 12 novembre 1983), a cura di Irene Favaretto, Padova, Accademia Patavina, 1984, pp. 146-147, tav. I,5.
• Capuis Loredana, 125.Vaso biconico, in Un Museo di Antichità nella Padova del Cinquecento. La raccolta di Marco Mantova Benavides all'Università di Padova, a cura di Irene Favaretto, Alessandra Menegazzi, Roma, Giorgio Bretschneider, 2013, p. 144.