Fruit stand
In archeology, a fruit stand is a vessel with a very high foot that was used to store fruit . Fruit stands were mainly in use in Near Eastern (especially Assyrian and Mesopotamian ) cultures during the early Bronze Age (2200 BC to 800 BC), but also in prehistoric cultures in south-eastern Europe .
description
Fruit stands were made of fired or unfired ceramic , gemstone or metal . But they could also be composed of different materials. Typical for fruit stands is a very high base, which carried one or more supports or bowls stacked on top of each other at certain intervals, on which the offerings were then presented. Fruit stands could be unadorned; most of the unearthed specimens are decorated with ornaments and symbols incised or coated with precious metal, sometimes also painted on . For ease of transportation, many of these stator and also one or more portable were grips or handles provided.
use
The fruit stand served as a container for serving and presenting fruit in front of a certain deity or idol . Most specimens were found at entrances to ritual sites or tombs or in sanctuaries . Fruit stands were often divided into several levels in order to be able to separate the types of fruit on them, as different fruits had different cultic and ritual meanings and / or were only dedicated to a certain deity.
literature
- Wolfgang Zwickel: Incense cult and smoking devices (= Orbis biblicus et orientalis , Volume 97). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1990, ISBN 3-7278-0671-0 , pp. 152 & 153.
- Erich Ebeling, Bruno Meissner, Dietz Otto Edzard: Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie , Volume 8. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-11-014809-9 , pp. 70–73.
- Ellen Rehm: Gun graves in the ancient Orient: on the problem of the valuation of weapons in graves of the 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC In Mesopotamia and Syria (= BAR international series , Volume 1191). Archaeopress, Oxford (UK) 2003, ISBN 1-84171-557-3 , pp. 43-46.
