Image Details

Israel Antiquities Authority/Mariana Salzberger

The excavators found three ceramic skulls carefully placed in elongated, trumpet-shaped bowls (shown here, compare with photo of ceramic sculpture of human head), perhaps representing the image of the deceased reinterred in an adjacent ossuary. Like Chalcolithic pottery from the northern coastal plain, these trumpet-shaped stands, with windows hollowed out of their bases, are adorned with red painted patterns. These bowls resemble incense stands from much later periods, suggesting to some archaeologists that they may have been used for burnt offerings.