Posted by At the British Museum, among their massive collection of ancient artifacts, was this water jug from Cyprus, dated from between 600 and 300 BC. It had a little figure of a woman on the top of it holding a similar jug, the lip of which made up the spout from which the larger one poured from.
I wondered if there was once an ancient woman who thought it was funny that she was pouring liquid from a jug that a smaller woman on it was also pouring from, who also reasoned that the land she stood on was perhaps the vessel upon which she, herself, was mounted, and that the land was using her to pour liquid out from a smaller vessel she held, upon which there existed an even smaller woman, with an even smaller vessel, dispensed the liquid.
Thrilleana responded that people back then were pretty stupid, so probably no. But I can only imagine that whoever made the pot had to have been thinking along these lines (i.e. extending the metaphor backwards, was well as forwards).
