4th millennium B.C. A highly important ceramic jar with piriform body, tall tubular neck, everted rim to the mouth and two integral loop handles below the shoulder, decorated with a dense painted ornamental scheme; exhibiting in multiple iterations the archaic Chinese pictogram tian for field in Banpo script, the earliest form of writing in China. See Keightley, David. N. The Origins of Writing in China: Scripts and Cultural Contexts in Senner, W. M. The Origins of Writing University of Nebraska Press, 1989. 2.3 kg, 31.5 cm high (12 3/8 in.). Ex Cemetary Ganshu. Ex private collection Ascona, Switzerland, 1965. Ex Martin Schøyen collection. Apanied by a copy of the Schøyen collection entry no.MS 3024/2. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is apanied by AIAD certificate no.11372-192662. The Martin Schøyen collection is a unique curated assemblage of written 'documents' of all kinds from around the world including manuscripts, scrolls and epigraphic items. There is noparable collection of such variety geographically, linguistically, textually, and in terms of scripts, writing materials, etc., over such a great span of time as five millennia. [A video of this lot is available to view on Timeline Auctions .]