Vessel in the form of a boar ca. 3100-2900 B.C. Proto-Elamite This ceramic vessel takes the form of a standing wild boar. The body is hollow, serving as a container, with a small round rim atop the center of the back and a hole pierced through the snout. The vessel could have been filled through the larger hole in the back while the smaller hole in the snout was held closed with a thumb, allowing the liquid to flow out once the snout was uncovered. Made of fine clay with a smoothed surface, the vessel is decorated in dark brown paint on buff-colored ceramic. The sharply angled hatching covering the vessel evokes the boars bristly hide, especially along the spine, where it is arranged in a vertical row. The eyes are indicated by circles with a central dot, just below the small, alertly raised ears. The split hooves and fetlocks are modeled in clay. The boars hunched posture lends the vessel a sense of potentially explosive movement, and reminds the viewer that wild boars are fierce an