An Investigation into the Form of Bronze and Pottery Wares of the First Millennium BC, Preserved at the Samāvi Collection

By studying works of art remained from the past, various fields of study such as cultural, anthropological and artistic domains can be understood more clearly. These works can be found in national or private museums and examined in detail. A relativrly large collection of such ancient works has been compiled by Javād Samāvi (1954-2015), which includes vessels and artifacts from the prehistoric and Islamic period with a variety of works of glass, silver, bronze, stone, pottery and bronze. The research methodology of the present article is historical-analytical in nature. The method of collecting information is based on library sources and field studies. To prepare the samples, functional bronze and earthenware vessels have been selected by visiting Mr. Samāvi’s private collection. The research population and the available samples of the works in this place were 324 items of functional pottery and 243 of bronze functional vessels, respectively. These works belong to the first millennium BC. Among the research population, 15 samples of functional pottery and 11 samples of bronze functional vessels were analyzed as the sample size. After selecting the samples, functional pottery and bronze wares were examined and analyzed in a combined way, quantitatively and qualitatively, with the aim of analyzing thier formal features. The questions of this research are as follows: What were the functions of bronze and earthenware vessels in the first millennium BC, according to the items now preserved at the Samāvi collection? What are the forms of pottery and bronze wares in this collection in terms of function?
The results of the present study show that the functional bronze wares in the first millennium BC from this collection are 144 vessels in 77 different forms. The number of pottery wares from the first millennium BC in the collection is 324 in 130 different forms. In the present article, 11 forms of bronze vessels from the first millennium BC were examined. These vessels come in the form of large star-shaped plates, small handled pitchers, needle-shaped bowls, footed cups, small stone pots, jugs, grooved tubs with handles and foots, tubular teapots, beak-shaped cups, mortars and their handles. Incidentally, 15 forms of earthenware examined, including those of handled drinking jug, tubular earthenware, footed vessel, drinking cup, fotted bowl, perforated bowl, sebo, small handled pitcher, handled pitcher, long-necked scent bottle, earthenware, tubular earthenware and almond-shaped bowl.