Sphero-Conical Vessel

Sphero-Conical Vessel

A Fatimid sphero-conical vessel with a dark brown to purple slip, worn in many places on the body to show a yellow fabric. The rim is thick and inverted, on top of a thinner neck. The mouth has only a small opening. The main body of the vessel is ovoid, truncated at the shoulder, which is sharply defined and joins the neck almost horizontally. The body is undecorated and the base is convex with spiral ridges consistent with a vessel thrown quickly on the wheel and not trimmed.

This kind of vessel was long considered to be a kind of hand grenade used with 'Greek fire', but the identification is now questioned. Many types are known from across the Islamic world, from the 9th to 15th centuries. An undecorated example in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a very close parallel to the shape, but with a colouration tending towards brown (C.884-1919). It is also from Fustat, acquired in 1919, and dates to the 10th - 11th centuries. A salt-glazed example in the British Museum (OA+.14412), dated to the 12th - 13th centuries, parallels the relief collar on the neck of the vessel.

The vessel is from Ali Bey Bahgat's early operations at Fustat (Old Cairo). It was acquired from the Museum of Arab Art in Cairo, where Bahgat was curator, by Comte Corporal Gontran Louis Henri Marie Philippe de Tournouër in 1915 or 1916. De Tournouer acquired six other early Islamic antiquities from Bahgat and all are said to come from a house excavated at Fustat at a depth of 50 feet. These excavations, started in 1912, were little more than recovery operations until Baghat secured funding to excavate more formally in 1918. The precise archaeological context for the discovery of the vessel is therefore unknown and the sale of duplicate artefacts from the Museum collections was a common practice at the time. De Tournouer donated his collection to the Queensland Museum in 1917 after being invalided home from the First World War.

AD 900 - AD 1100

Height: 79 mm

Width: 62 mm

Depth: 62 mm

C.008.007

QM H4854.1

© Queensland Museum, Peter Waddington.

Recovered from a House at Fustat, Cairo, Egypt, c. 1912-1915.
Part of the Museum of Arab Art Collection, Cairo, Egypt, until c. 1915-1916.
Transferred by Ali Bey Baghat, Curator, Museum of Arab Art, Cairo, Egypt, to Comte Cpl. Gontran de Tournouer, c. 1915-1916.
Donated by Comte Cpl. Gontran de Tournouer, Brisbane, to the Queensland Museum, Brisbane, 1922.

Queensland Museum, Brisbane

Reid, D. M. (2019). Contesting antiquity in Egypt : archaeologies, museums & the struggle for identities from World War I to Nasser. American University in Cairo Press

Wodzinska, A. (2010). A Manual of Egyptian Pottery Volume 4: Ptolemaic through Modern Period. Ancient Egypt Research Associates. Medieval Types 142-3.

Sphero-Conical Vessel. (900-1100). [Sphero-conical vessel, earthenware, stamped decoration]. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. C.884-1919=collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O345760/sphero-conical-vessel-unknown/

Aeolipile. (12th-13th Century). [Aeolipile. Spheroconic vessel/aeolipile with relief collar at the neck with incised chevron ornament.]. British Museum, London. OA+.14412=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_OA-14412

Stanley, T., Pinder-Wilson, R.H.,Savage-Smith, E., & Maddison, F.R. (1997). Science, tools & magic, Volume II. Oxford University Press.

Queensland Museum Donor Schedule #17/159 (1917).

Queensland Museum Outward Correspondence #00138 (1917).

Queensland Museum Inwards Correspondence #00509 (1917)

Ettinghausen, R. (1965). The Uses of Sphero-Conical Vessels in the Muslim East. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 24(3), 218–229. http://www.jstor.org/stable/543124

Sharvit, J., Tzaferis, V., Israeli, S., Basson, U., Berman, A., Bijovsky, G., Dekkel, A., Ginzburg, A., Khamis, E., Sharon, M., & Wilson, J. F. (2008). The Sphero-Conical Vessels. In Paneas II: Small Finds and Other Studies (Vol. 38, pp. 101–112). Israel Antiquities Authority. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1fzhd6d.7

P.008

Mr James Donaldson

Dr Brit Asmussen