Made from steatite and decorated with a circle-dot pattern, this box was found at Susa.
Excavations in the tombs and settlements of the Umm an-Nar culture produced distinctive containers made of steatite, a soft “soap stone” similar to chlorite but of a greyish instead of greenish hue. The form most often taken by containers was of small round or rectangular boxes, sometimes divided into two compartments, and fitted with a lid. Their only adornment was the circle dot incised around the rim or on the side of the vessel. Chronologically, these containers seem to date from the Early Dynastic III to the Ur III period. Several were inscribed as booty by Akkadian kings.1Potts 1989, 146 & Fig. 10 They are sometimes referred to as série recente in order to distinguish them from the older Intercultural-style chlorite vessels, known also as série ancienne, which seem to date a little earlier, to the Early Dynastic II and III periods. The differences between the two types of stone vessels may not be strictly chronological; the série recente containers are principally found in the United Arab Emirates and Oman whereas the série ancienne containers have been found more widely distributed across Iran and Mesopotamia.
These simple yet elegant vessels were found in tombs and settlements of the Umm an-Nar culture. They are carved from a soft, grey stone known as steatite.
Cleuziou, Serge.
“Oman Peninsula in the Third Millennium,” in Frontiers of the Indus Civilization : Sir Mortimer Wheeler Commemoration Volume, edited by B. B Lal, S. P. Gupta.
New Delhi: Indian Archaeological Society, 1984.
Potts, T. F. “Foreign Stone Vessels of the Late Third Millennium B.C. from Southern Mesopotamia: Their Origins and Mechanisms of Exchange.” Iraq, no. 51 (1989): 123–64. Link