Lidded Jar with Four Horn Lugs (200s–400s CE): Art, History and Details

Lidded Jar with Four Horn Lugs (200s–400s CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Early earthenware from the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE–668) became widely utilized as agriculture and religion grew to be essential elements in sustaining society and its systems. The clay jars of different sizes and shapes on display were made for the following purposes: some were used to store harvested grains and seeds, some to preserve cremated remains, and some to serve offerings in rituals.

Object facts

• Title: Lidded Jar with Four Horn Lugs
• Date: 200s–400s CE
• Culture: Korea, Gaya period (42–562 CE)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware
• Dimensions: Overall: 24.6 cm (9 11/16 in.); Outer diameter: 21.3 cm (8 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1997.8

A detail from the museum

This pottery vessel served to contain cremated remains, indicating the popularity of Buddhist mortuary practice in Korea during the Three Kingdoms period.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pottery from Ancient Korea: Clay Art for Life and Death [한국고대의토기 : 흙・예술・삶과 죽음]. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 1997.
• Gaya Tombs [가야 무덤]. Changwon: Gaya National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage, 2007.
• Pak, Cheon-su. Gaya togi: gayaui yeoksawa munhwa [가야 토기: 가야의 역사와 문화]. Gyeonggi-do, Gwacheon: Chininjin, 2010.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.