Byzantine Empire, ca. 12th century CE. This is a pottery bowl that would have been glazed for domestic use; it has a decorated interior with a design that looks like an eye or a sun. Byzantine pottery workshops that created glazed ware for domestic use based their designs on vessels made of silver or other precious metals. They used the technique called sgraffito, with the design incised through a white slip coating to reveal the red clay body beneath. These bowls were made and exported throughout the Empire. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has as part of its collection a very similar piece that was found in the Aegean. In the past few decades, there have been a tremendous amount of Byzantine shipwrecks discovered; for example, there is currently a major project excavating 37 individual wrecks from a site called Yenikapi, which was a port in Constantinople, that is being excavated as part of the construction of a new high speed rail tunnel under the Bosporus -- the largest collection of ships ever uncovered from a single site. Size: 7.75" W x 3.1" H (19.7 cm x 7.9 cm).

Provenance: Ex-Private New Jersey collection acquired before 1990

All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.

A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.

We ship worldwide and handle all shipping in-house for your convenience.

#112935

Chipping to the rim, but otherwise intact, with some wear to the interior and barnacles on the exterior.