Shallow Bowl with Cut Decoration

  • Achaemenid period
  • 4th century B.C.
  • Glass
  • H-4.4 W-15.9
Catalogue Entry

This dish was created from translucent glass with the slightest greenish tinge. The mouth edge is bent outward, the sides are short and there is a clearly delineated curving line which separates the walls from the round base. After the plate was cast the outer walls of the base were decorated with cut designs. A small circle in the center is surrounded by 16 narrow petals, and then a further 16 petals extend to the curved edge. This plate imitates the metallic plate shape known as a phiale which was popular in Achaemenid Persia, and this shows that expensive vessels that were luxurious and elaborate were also created in glass. Approximately half of the wall surface is a later repair1).

1)?\?\?\Published in Axel von Saldern, "Glass Finds at Gordion," Journal of Glass Studies, Vol. 1, Corning, 1959, p. 42, fig. 29.