urn

Dictionary: urn (ûrn) pronunciation

A vase of varying size and shape, usually having a footed base or pedestal.
A closed metal vessel having a spigot and used for warming or serving tea or coffee.
Botany. The spore-bearing part of a moss capsule.

[Middle English urne, from Latin urna.]

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Lidded ovaloid vase on a circular plan used in Classical Antiquity to contain cremated remains. It was a form later revived for purposes of architectural decoration, on balustrade pedestals, set in niches, used as garden-ornaments, employed in funerary monuments (often draped, or with a portrait-medallion of the deceased on its side, especially in Neo-Classical examples), shown in relief on friezes, etc., and sometimes with representations of flames issuing from the lid.

Archaeology Dictionary: urn

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[Ar]

A generic name applied to a vase or jar, generally with a rounded body, narrow neck, and a height greater than its maximum diameter, that was used (not necessarily exclusively) to contain the cremated remains of the dead. The name has become applied to some styles of prehistoric pottery (e.g.collared urn) because examples were found in burial contexts before they were widely recognized on contemporary settlement sites. Many prehistoric urns are simply domestic vessels of a style preferentially selected for use in burial rites; in later times ceramics were especially produced for use in burial and ceremonial situations.

Word Tutor: urn

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IN BRIEF: A metal vase. Also: A container with a faucet for making and serving tea or coffee.

Oh, tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire. — Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857).

Tutor's tip: She wanted to "earn" (to receive payment for one's labor) praise by carving an "erne" (a European eagle) into the marble "urn" (a vase used as a receptacle for cremated ashes).

Wikipedia: Urn

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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.

It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve it by citing reliable sources. Tagged since March 2008.

Maya funerary urn

Columbarium

Lustration urn from Pergamon. This is one of two huge urns now in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. They date from Hellenistic times.

This article is about a type of container. For other uses, see URN.

An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered and without handles, that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. "Knife urns" placed on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were an English innovation for high-style dining rooms of the late 1760s. They went out of fashion in the following decade, in favour of knife boxes that were placed on the sideboard.

In Classical terms, an urn is a large decorative covered container of wood, metal, pottery, etc. In furniture, it was a large wooden vase-like container which was usually set on a pedestal on either side of a side table. This was the characteristic of Adam designs and also of Hepplewhite's work. Urns were also used as decorative turnings at the cross points of stretchers in 16th and 17th century furniture designs. The urn and the vase were often set on the central pedestal in a "broken" or "swan's" neck pediment.^[1]

1 Cremation urns
2 Other urns
3 Notes
4 See also

Cremation urns

Funerary urns (also called cinerary urns) were used by many civilisations. After a person died, survivors cremated the body and collected the ashes in an urn (see also lekythos, a type of pottery in ancient Greece used for holding oil in funerary ritual). In the Bavarian tradition, a king's heart would be placed in the urn upon his death (as happened with King Otto of Bavaria in 1916).

Romans placed the urns in a niche in a collective tomb called a columbarium (literally, dovecote. The interior of a dovecote usually has niches to house doves.

The discovery of a Bronze Age urn burial in Norfolk, England prompted Sir Thomas Browne to carefully describe the antiquities found. He expanded his study to survey burial and funerary customs, ancient and current, and published it as Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial (1658).

Other urns

The Ashes, the prize in the biennial Test cricket competition between England and Australia, are contained in a miniature urn.

Urns are a common form of architectural detail and garden ornament. Well-known ornamental urns include the Waterloo Vase.

In mathematics, an urn problem is a thought experiment in probability theory.

A tea urn is a heated metal container (Electric water boiler) traditionally used to brew tea or boil water in large quantities in factories, canteens or churches, that is, it is not usually found in domestic use. Like a samovar it has a small tap near the base for extracting either tea or hot water.

Notes

^ Martin Pegler, The Dictionary of Interior Design

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		Architecture and Landscaping. A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Copyright © 1999, 2006 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more
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Garden Urn	Urn Planters

urn

Contents

Cremation urns

Other urns

Notes

See also