bowl

The scene on this early bowl already displays many of the qualities that would become canonical in Egyptian art. Stylized hippopotami are depicted in profile, with their essential features - mouths, eyes, ears, legs, and tails - shown as discrete symbols rather than realistically; yet combined they form a visually coherent and aesthetically pleasing whole. A landscape setting is indicated both by the wavy, concentric lines of the central rosette representing a pool of water or perhaps the Nile, and by the zigzag lines around the border