Spouted vessel ca. 9th-8th century B.C. Iran This pitcher has a squat body with a rounded shoulder, a short neck, and a flaring rim. A short spout emerges from one side of the body just below the shoulder and connects to the rim. A rounded handle connects the shoulder and the rim on the other side. The pitcher is buff, with painted reddish-brown decorations, including three rays with crosshatching surrounding the spout and dots on the rim. The combination of the spout and painted decorations suggest the form of a bird. The body and neck were made separately on a wheel, with the handle and spout added later.This pitcher was excavated at Tepe Sialk, near Kashan in central Iran. Sialk was the site of a fortified town, constructed in the early first millennium B.C. Several hundred yards from the town there was a large cemetery, called Necropolis B by the archaeologists who explored it between 1933 and 1937. The graves were pits covered with pitched roofs made of stone or clay, and in addit