EARLY CYCLADIC I, CIRCA 3200-2700 B.C.

The moniker kandila was given to Cycladic pedestaled jars because of their coincidental likeness to Greek church lamps. Most such jars conform to a style with ellipsoidal bodies fashioned with four evenly spaced lugs, a collar, and a pedestal foot, as observed here. According to P. Getz-Gentle (p. 5 in Stone Vessels of the Cyclades in the Early Bronze Age), the kandila “is the most complex marble vase form produced in the [Early Cycladic I] phase. Not only is it the receptive form most often repeated, but it was apparently the most plentiful of all marble forms of its time, figurative or receptive.” For a similar example from the Leonard Stern Collection, see pl. 16d, no. A65 in Getz-Gentle, op. cit.