Cypriot shallow Red Black mottled bowl: Early Bronze Age I-III (2300-2000 BC)

Mottled Red and Black Polished Ware shallow bowl with black, burnished interior, single handle and dimpled base.  I had nothing quite like this version of the most common item from the Early and early Middle Cypriot, the personal eating and drinking bowl of red polished ware.  Mottled red-black ware became less common after the Early Bronze Age II and ended before the Middle Bronze Age.  The red colour came from iron oxide in the clay and the black from creating a local condition during firing that exceeded access to oxygen and thus created a reducing atmosphere. This is believed, in the case of black top ware with black interior to have been created by partial burial in sand in the kiln.