I wonder if rather too much has been read into this. I do see that there appears to be a vagina, but there is no swollen belly nor any breasts, both indicators of a pregnant woman. Now, if there are similarly posed figures, in whatever medium, then I disown my skepticism, but given the crude work might that, seemingly essential female attribute just not be where the artist's thumb or finger nail has moulded the clay while adding the legs. I was under the impression that most birth were with the mother either standing or crouching in early society (though I confess to a great deal of squeamishness, I can watch any amount of torture and disembowelling but ' The Miracle of Birth'...tell me when it's over!)
Were both figures male it might be a fallen warrior, surely a more likely subject in a phallocentric society? nor does it seem obvious just what this object was used for; it is not glazed so cannot have held liquid, this I know from having made an unglazed clay mug and trying to drink from it! Fortunately, I was eight and the liquid was but water. It may have held dry offerings to the goddess or hero, Persius mentions the Gods being more favourable to a good man's offering of a handful of wheat than a bad man's cow in one of his Satires (the wheat is right but the ow may be an error, Persius is no comedian; for that read Juvenal or Martial, more laughs than a Jacobean Tragedy
).
Is there more info in the notes, Pauline? It is certainly interesting, as all have said, and I have not seen anything comparable, though that is not saying too much
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
) and secondly we have no written sources in the entire spectrum of ancient Greece that would support such a claim.