Dido, Queen of Carthage

Ancient Roman silver tableware found outside imperial frontiers - Silver bowl with Athena (Minerva), from the Hildesheim Treasure, 1st century BC. Antikensammlung, Berlin

Roman Ribbed Glass Bowl, 1st Century AD

The first examples of ribbed bowls date back to the second quarter of the 1st century BC; from the middle of that century, the shape suffered a minor variation, with the adoption of a flatter or slightly convex bottom, which made the vessel more stable. Their production increased considerably from the late Hellenistic period on and continued during the 1st century of the Empire with a very elaborate typology and various dimensions. The most common colors were first orange-brown, aubergine and, more rarely, cobalt blue; these were gradually replaced by a simple transparent glass with light blue, dark or pale green reflections around the mid-1st century AD, when the taste for bright colors became old-fashioned. These bowls were largely used as tableware across the Mediterranean world, from Italy to the more western and northern colonies of the Empire, from the Aegean to the Levant. This wide distribution suggests that they were produced in Italian and Syro-Palestinian workshops.

What is this rather peculiar-looking script?

Pictured above is a bronze bowl from Cyprus, dating to 1200-1050 BC. The script inscribed onto this very old vessel is known as Cypro-Minoan. This script, with characters similar to Minoan Linear A, seems to have appeared in Cyprus about 1500 BC, and is yet to be deciphered.

Artefact courtesy of & can be viewed at the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece: Th.N. Zintilis Collection, no. 730. Photo taken by Dan Diffendale (2nd image cropped).

Silver Flanged Bowl

Romano-British

4th Century AD

(Source: The British Museum)

Mould-made bowl, Greek, dated around 225-175 BC, British Museum

This Athenian-made bowl was discovered in Thebes, and depicts the abduction of Persephone by Hades. On the bowl, we see the chariot of Hades, led by Hermes (the messenger god), rushing towards the entrance to the Underworld. Persephone, with her streaming hair, stretches her arms out towards the female figures who chase after the chariot. The first of these may either be Demeter, who was her mother, or one of the friends she was picking flowers with when the abduction took place. Following in pursuit are Athena, Hekate (or Demeter), and Artemis, with the god Pan playing the pipe. Two of the daughters of Danaus, who was the King of Egypt in Greek legend, are shown with leaky pitchers. 

These silver bowls were originally made in Athens and are Egyptian-influenced, and it is thought that with such references to Greek poetry and myth, this may have been designed as to appeal to well-educated customers.

Archaic Greek bowl, dated to between 625- 600 BC, found in Rhodes

This bowl, made in Corinth, features a Gorgon’s head, which at the time was popular at the centre of cups and bowls. The head is surrounded by sphinxes, panthers, deer, and a siren, and is thought that the face not only served as an eye-catching feature but also to ward off the ‘evil-eye’ from the user of the vase.

British Museum