About

Boar Vessel refers to a photograph of an Etruscan ceramic sculpture of a boar taken at the Cleveland Museum of art.

Origin

On December 27th, 2012, Wikimedia^[1] user Daderot uploaded a photograph of a ceramic sculpture of a boar, describing it as "Boar Vessel, 600-500 BC, Estruscan, ceramic" from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Spread

On April 17th, 2013, the drawpaintprint Tumblr blog reposted the photo.^[2] On April 1st, 2015, Facebook page Edifying Etruscan Memes posted^[3] an image featuring a mock dialogue with a girl who reveals she only dates "Boar Vessel 600-500 BC Estruscan Ceramic" (shown below). On August 14th, 2016, the image was posted^[4] to the subreddit /r/me_irl by Redditor OrdinaryHotdog. Prior to being archived, the post gained over 2,000 upvotes and 20 comments.

On June 17th, 2018, the image was edited into the Etruscan art Wikipedia article.^[5] On June 17th, the /r/BoarVesselMemes^[6] subreddit was launched. On June 18th, Redditor LuxerHS submitted the boar vessel photo captioned with a variant of the I Bet There Will Be Flying Cars in the Future caption to /r/dankmemes^[7] (shown below, left). On the same day, a post asking "What's the deal with Boar Vessel" was submitted to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[8] The following day, Redditor LuxerHS posted a "Guys Litterally Only Want One Thing" image using the boar vessel photo to /r/dankmemes^[9] (shown below, right).

Forgery Allegations

A 2021 study by experts at the Cleveland Art Museum, where Boar Vessel is held, showed that the ceramic piece may be a 20th century forgery rather than a genuine Etruscan artifact. Using thermoluminescent dating techniques, they determined that the Boar Vessel's materials accumulated radiation levels did not match what would be expected from a ceramic made in Antiquity.^[10]

Search Interest

External References