Fallimorphic Cylindrical Vessel - LO.693, Origin: Central Asia, Circa: 800 AD to 1000 AD, Dimensions: 8" (20.3cm) wide, Collection: Islamic Art, Style: Islamic, Medium: Stoneware. Elongated stone vessel in the shape of a male scrotum, pointed on its lower part and featuring two bulging spheres to represent the genitals. Along the body diamond shaped incised patterns. Various interpretations have been offered regarding the actual function of such vessels, from grenades, fire-blowers (aeolipiles), to containers of precious liquids or plumb bobs. Indeed recently the Conservation Department of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, while analysing one sphero-conical vessel, found traces of mercury, thus indicating that some of these objects could have been used to contain mercury.Other authors, relying on epigrahic evidence, have suggested that some of them would have stored beer. What seems logic is that sphero-conical vessels, depending on the shape and material, would have then served different purposes. Not only were they eccletic in function, they also have been found in sites throughout the Middle East up to Central Asia, datable from the 1st millennium BC up to the Mongol invasion, attesting to their incredible success as portable carriers of precious substances. The unusual shape of this vessel further carries either an erotic and/or ritualistic connotation which is now difficult to grasp. Definitely, such peculiar containers would have served a specific function, perhaps linked to fertility rites or esoteric practices. G. Fehervari, Ceramic of the Islamic World in the Tarek Rajab Museum, 2000: pp 207-231. Richard Ettinghausen, 'The Use of sphero- Conical Vessels in the Muslim East', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XXIV, 1965: 218-229.

Antiquities
Ancient Near East