Image Details

A fluted bronze bowl, or phiale, seen from below. Decorated in relief with a 16-petaled rosette encircled by 34 fluted leaves, this bowl bears a Phoenician dedicatory inscription on its run. Incised dots, filled with white paste to enhance visibility, form, the letters of the inscription, which reads: “We offer two cups to the marzeah of Shamash.” Although dated to the fourth century B.C., this shallow, 7-inch diameter bowl resembles Assyrian prototypes from Amos’s time, and so gives us an idea of the type of bowl used when the marzeah celebrants drank “wine in bowls” (Amos 6:6).