Ballyalton bowl

Ballyalton bowl [Ar].
A type of well-made decorated Neolithic pottery found in Ireland and dating to the late 4th and early 3rd millennia bc The forms are round-based and shouldered, with a blunted section at the top of the blade and with the diameter of the rim less than that of the shoulder, sometimes markedly so. Decoration includes vertical linear grooved and whipped cord impressions arranged in lines or arcs. Relief ornament is sometimes present. A revised scheme for Irish Neolithic pottery put forward by Alison Sheridan places these vessels within a longer-lived tradition of fineware bipartite bowls spanning the early and middle Neolithic.