bowl
- Museum number
- 133033
- Description
-
Silver pedestal-footed bowl; decorated in the central roundel on the interior with a long-tailed bird with crescentic crest originally holding a suspended necklace in its beak (now almost totally worn away), with two short oblique engraved marks forming a V chevron in the field between the neck and tail of the bird; shallow vertical flutes on the exterior; made from hammered sheet, decoration formed by engraving outlines and details of the legs, tail and lower wing feathers, with punches used to indicate the plumage on the chest and neck; decoration originally highlighted with gilding but this almost totally worn away; incurved rim with flat top; flared cylindrical foot made separately with single concentric engraved line around the exterior near the bottom; long dotted Pahlavi inscription around almost 45% of the interior of the foot ring.
- Production date
- 4thC-6thC
- Dimensions
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Diameter: 0.50 centimetres (border of roundel)
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Diameter: 0.10 centimetres (centering mark)
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Diameter: 9.70 centimetres (central roundel)
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Diameter: 17 centimetres (exterior rim)
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Diameter: 9.10 centimetres (foot ring)
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Height: 3.80 centimetres (foot ring)
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Height: 8.30 centimetres
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Weight: 434 grammes
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- A dotted Middle Persian inscription on the interior of the foot ring was shown to A.D.H. Bivar 17/1/06 who suggests it begins with a personal name and patronymic, followed by an indication of the weight, i.e. 6 [staters] [and] zwzn [drachmae] 3. Differential corrosion on interior and exterior suggests that this bowl may have been buried with the interior either protected through being nested in a hoard or by a lid (for the type of lids used on these bowls see the footed bowl MME 3280-3282 in the "Carthage Treasure" in the Department of Prehistory and Europe, formerly M&LA, M&ME). The bowl was originally assigned a Sasanian origin and date of ca 250 - 500 AD and other examples of this type are known: e.g., Sotheby's (London), 18 May 1987, p.10, pl. III, lot 82.
- Location
- On display (G42/dc16)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2006 13 Apr-Dec BM, G2/168/6(right)
1995-2005 17 Nov-Dec BM, G52/IRAN/22, from official opening
1994 16 Jun-23 Dec BM, G49/IRAN/22/7
1975-ca 1990 Jul- BM, Iranian Room [IR], case 20/1
- Acquisition date
- 1963
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 133033
- Registration number
- 1963,0420.1