Dish — 1125-1175

Byzantine bowl of incised slipware. This is a shallow circular bowl with an almost vertical rim and a low wide foot. The exterior of the bowl is unglazed, revealing the red pottery body. There are some areas of dark discolouration and a line of slip around the outside of the top edge, but none on the rim of the bowl. The interior has been covered in an off-white slip. A fine tool, a stylus, has been used to incise a design through the white slip to expose the red surface of the clay. The motif incised inside the bowl is of a large waterbird, a crane or a heron. The bird is in profile. Its head points upwards and its feet are set apart as if it is walking. It has plumage across its body drawn in lines and dashes, long legs and large feet. The twofalconer's lures at each side, together with the central bird, occupy the whole floor of the bowl's interior. The branches are palmette-like leaf-scrolls. There is no visible glaze on this dish (the museum registers state it had been burned off).