Footnotes

• The inscription around the exterior rim starts with: "This blessed bowl" and bears names of various ailments that would be cured by drinking from it; ending with ".... The noble treasury in Damascus ..."
  
  A very similar example sold at Sotheby's (Arts of the Islamic World, London, 1st April 2009 Lot 60), which shows the interior of the bowl would most probably have been engraved with a scorpion, dog and a snake in addition to the double-headed dragon, typical of the group of talismanic bowls called "poison cups". Poison cups are never dated and there are 22 recorded examples all are attributed to Syria or Egypt. For further reading see Francis Maddison and Emilie Savage-Smith, Science, Tools & Magic, London, 1997, cat. no. 28.

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Category: Islamic and Oriental Art / Islamic and Indian Art

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