Vounous Bowl: A 4,000-year-old basin holding 4 miniature cows and 18 people -- that was buried for mysterious reasons in a Bronze Age tomb in Cyprus

Live Science ^ | July 21, 2025 | Kristina Killgrove

[SunkenCiv]

...Excavations at the site of Vounous-Bellapais in the 1930s revealed dozens of tombs from a large prehistoric cemetery. Although many of the tombs had previously been looted, archaeologists recovered a large number of intricately decorated ceramics, including the Vounous Bowl, which had broken into many pieces over the ages.

The Vounous Bowl, which is now in the Cyprus Museum, is shallow with a flat base measuring 14.6 inches (37 centimeters) in diameter and 3.1 inches (8 cm) tall, Louise Steel, an archaeologist at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, wrote in a 2013 study.

One side of the bowl has a rough, rectangular hole that likely indicates a doorway. Inside the bowl is a complex scene composed of 18 human figures, four cows in pens and some furniture...

Steel wrote that the Vounous Bowl was likely a means of symbolic communication, created at a time when the quickly growing population began engaging in elaborate communal feasts and elaborate burial rituals. The use of modeled figures to create a scene inside the bowl is extremely rare in prehistoric Cypriot vessels, so the Vounous Bowl was likely special in some way and buried with someone held in high esteem by their community.

The Vounous Bowl was made at a time of social transition and rapid cultural innovation, and "almost certainly it was meant to be viewed or displayed in significant ceremonial occasions," Steel wrote. "The Vounous Bowl is just one example of an increased display of symbols within the funerary context."

[SunkenCiv]

The "Vounous Bowl" (ca. 2025–1850 BCE) is a prehistoric Bronze Age vessel from the cemetery at Bellapais Vounous in Cyprus, modeled to depict what is commonly interpreted as people engaged in ritual activities in front of a shrine. Now housed at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia [500x764]

Reddit / r/ArtefactPorn

[SunkenCiv]

[Red Badger]

Early method of photography..................

[Red Badger]

Early method of photography..................

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Or it might have been a model that the architect was showing to the client.

[Steely Tom]

I take it that it’s made of bronze. Is that right?

[SunkenCiv]

Nope, ceramic.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Clay.

[SunkenCiv]

It might be fun to market reproductions (minus the ‘doorway’ hole) as toney kids’ breakfast cereal bowls.

[ridesthemiles]

THAT IS PRETTY INTRICATE!!!!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

They would get a laugh out of the guy that looks like he is taking a leak on the lady’s shoes.

[bunkerhill7]

It’s a doll house. Even my cat can figure this one out.

[MayflowerMadam]

A toy?

[antidemoncrat]

Why the long faces ... I mean necks ... aliens?

[Governor Dinwiddie]

An early manger creche scene with the baby Jesus.

[laplata]

An early manger creche scene with the baby Jesus.

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This is prehistoric and way before Jesus.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Nothing can be earlier than Jesus who is eternally begotten.

[OldHarbor]

Some ET’s doing a cattle roundup.

[laplata]

You were wrong and are incapable of manning up to it.

[ZOOKER]

Since the alphabet hadn't been invented yet, maybe this is a recipe?

Add a few veggies and it's cannibal stew!