Pilgrim bottle (Syria)

Pilgrim bottle- type ceramics have been around since the middle of the 2nd millennium BC at the latest. Known from the area of ​​today's Syria and one of the most common and important unglazed ceramic forms there. It is called a pilgrim bottle because pilgrims often carried it on a belt or slung around a shoulder strap. They were often purchased at pilgrimage sites. Consecrated oil or healing water was often transported in them. Round or oval they resemble the simpler, undecorated shepherd's bottles . The pilgrims often took such vessels home as souvenirs. Both sides of the bottles were made in the same mold. They were produced until at least the middle of the 2nd millennium AD. There are examples from Urartu , the Byzantine- Christian epoch and the Arab-Islamic epoch of Syria.

literature

• Land of Baal. Syria, forum of peoples and cultures. von Zabern, Mainz 1982 ISBN 3-8053-0576-1