I love the grace and elegance of this vase. Both the physical form of it, and the line of crocodiles spiralling up the side while the hippos sit more chaotically next to them interspersed with zigzag lines that are presumably representing the water these creatures live in.

I say “vase” because if something like this was in my house that’s what it’d be used as – a decorative centrepiece with some flowers in it. But that’s probably not what the person it was made for did with it. Maybe it contained drink, or some food stuff?

I don’t have much information about this object, but I think it’s from the Naqada I or early Naqada II periods – so some 500 to 1000 years before Egypt was unified in 3000BCE. A beautiful survivor of what was clearly a sophisticated and rich culture in the deep past.

It’s in the Cairo Museum (or at least it was in 2016 when I visited) but I don’t know the accession number or the provenance.

See it on my photo site: https://photos.talesfromthetwolands.org/picture.php?/481/

Jigsaw puzzles:
easier: https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=1111612b5d48
harder: https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=06bef5c15c1a