Bowl with Human Feet, by Christine Osvald-Mruz

Bowl with Human feet, Predynastic, Late Naqada l–Naqada II (Egypt) c. 3700–3450 B.C.

Bowl with Human Feet 
Predynastic Egypt, circa 3700-3450 B.C. 
 
Stout feet support the round open bowl.  Baby feet. Or swollen feet, under a pregnant belly.  You’re carrying low, must be a boy. Gentle curve of red-brown clay, vessel tipping slightly forward. Similar in form, the Met notes, to the hieroglyph that means “to bring,” “to offer.”  Or to a symbol that means “pure” as in water, as in source of life. It’s too ancient for us to know what it bore, why it has feet.  Footed bowl, trifle bowl, bowl of wonder. Perhaps used for offerings to a deity or the dead. Perhaps to hold water to cleanse or to drink. Perhaps to cup petals, other-worldly blue lotus. Perhaps to serve beer, bread, the daily gruel. How did this piece of pottery withstand nearly 6,000 years? What if the world seems set to destruct? Hammer to the head, hate on the Jumbotron, drone attacks, missile strikes, blocked grain, conflagration.  Didn’t we all come from a fat belly, start with small feet? Don’t we all need to be held and fed? Rim of civilization, tilt of the earth, everything off kilter and the bowl is still standing on its sturdy little feet. 
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Christine Osvald-Mruz
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Christine Osvald-Mruz is an attorney in private practice and the mother of four sons. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Christine is the daughter of a Hungarian immigrant father who taught French and an English-teacher mother. Originally from Long Island, New York, she lives in Morristown, New Jersey. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review.