Artifact – Antiquity – Native Globular Urn Modeled With Documentation – Archaeology

Period: 2nd–1st century BC

Origin: Necropolis of La Catalane, Les Baux-de-Provence (Southern Gaul)

Provenance: Brunet Collection (no. 71), formerly acquired before 1973

Large globular indigenous hand-built ceramic urn, complete, originating from the funerary assemblage of the protohistoric necropolis of La Catalane. This example corresponds to no. 73 in the inventory published in 1973 and represents one of the most characteristic closed, handleless vessel forms associated with cremation burials in the Alpilles region at the end of the Iron Age.

Characterised by a widely developed body, a short cylindrical neck and a flattened everted rim, this urn belongs to the local ceramic tradition of the Lower Rhône valley. Already derived from an earlier model at the time of its deposition, it reflects a firmly established regional artisanal production during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.

Description:

• Material: brown-red clay body.

• Form: closed globular urn without handles; short cylindrical neck; broad flattened everted rim; developed flat base.

• Decoration: undecorated.

• Surface treatment: interior roughly smoothed (code 2, coarse); exterior carefully burnished brown-red (code 1).

• Technical features: visible hand-modelling; slight irregularities consistent with indigenous production; no evidence of wheel-throwing.

Use:

Urns of this type contained cremated human remains. They accompanied the deceased within a funerary system characteristic of southern indigenous communities on the eve of Romanisation. Their frequency within the burials of La Catalane makes them a major cultural marker of the Alpilles territory.

Condition: intact.

Reference: Published in Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise, vol. 6 (1973), inventory of the necropolis of La Catalane, Baux-de-Provence, cat. 73 (figs. 35 and 36).

Listed as “intact”, Brunet Collection no. 71.

Note: The number written beneath the vessel differs from that used in the published catalogue, corresponding to the internal cataloguing practices of the Brunet Collection.

Note: The actual dimensions of the urn are slightly larger than those given in the publication. Similar discrepancies appear several times throughout the catalogue (simpulum, oil lamp, etc.), suggesting minor measurement inaccuracies or editorial errors in the 1973 publication.

Dimensions (according to the 1973 catalogue):

• Height: slightly over 23.8 cm

• Rim diameter: slightly over 15.0 cm

• Maximum diameter: slightly over 22.0 cm

• Base diameter: slightly over 15.0 cm

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