The principal pattern decorating this very ancient vessel may represent the tree of life, a motif which still appears throughout the Near East today. Imagine the hands that shaped it so long ago, and drew quick patterns in the still-wet clay; or the hands that filled it with some desirable commodity--cosmetics, perfume, rare balm. We can almost picture the person who purchased the vessel, used its contents, and was buried with it. When we hold this lovely amphora today, it is like a key that opens a hundred doorways through which the imagination might pass into a long-forgotten world.