White marble Kandila

Unknown artist

Carved from a single marble block. Created by Cycladic sculptors using obsidian and other non metal tools. A conical neck and foot with a hemispherical body with four vertical pierced lugs and a hollow foot. The neck is badly damaged and the lugs are broken. The foot is chipped and scoring is visible on the neck and body. Concretions are visible on the inside of the vessel. (Lynch 2005) The collared jar is the most characteristic of its type from the earliest Bronze Age phase of Cycladic civilisation. this vessel has a hemispherical body, a narrow, flat shoulder, a broad. nearly cylindrical neck and a conical foot. Its four vertical lugs, each with a horizontal perforation, are broken at the height of the perforation. This type of vessel, also made in clay, was produced in a wide range of sizes from the miniature to the monumental. It is not clear, however, whether clay or stone was the original medium. Its common name, 'kandela' means lamp, but the shape indicates that it was most probably a container for liquids. These jars are found in graves, usually wealthy ones, and are occasionally accompanied by marble figurines of the earliest folded arm type. However, their use may well not have been exclusively funerary. It has been suggested that, since the perforated lugs - which were probably used to suspend the jars from cords so that they could be carried - are often broken, the vases may have been used in the home before being consigned to a grave. Nevertheless, their precise use and possible cultic function remain obscure. (Haywood 2002)