Large Bronze Age Decorated Grey Ware Burial Urn

Earthenware vessel group comprising four with two opposed loop handles to the rim and two with a single thick loop handle; accompanied by an old collector's record card stating: 'Grave Group' of Pots. Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (4000-2000 BC). Central or S.E. Europe. Probably made for funerary use as they are too small to have been of practical value. The contents of a single grave (or at least 2-3 adjacent graves).' 486 grams total, 49-74 mm



From the collection of a late East Anglian teacher and antiquarian who retired to the Isle of Wight in Hampshire, UK. He amassed a large collection of objects between the 1960s-1980s.

Rectangular worked stone block with one irregular edge; the thicker, dressed edge with a group of five drilled holes, possibly cup-marks, in a V-shaped formation. 65.7 kg, 65.5 cm



From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Cup-marks, with or without surrounding rings, are among the most enigmatic signs which can be found widely across ancient European landscapes, most often in association with running water. Circular arrangements are one notable and recurrent feature, while straight lines and parallel rows are less frequently represented. The present stone most closely resembles the kind of feature found at e.g. Østergård, Risehøj, Østermarie on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea (Milstreu & Dodd, 2018, fig.15).

Formed as an ellipsoid-section tapering rod with the ends flattened. 17.2 grams, 17 mm



Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s.