"Eolipile" vessel

This small top-shaped vessel, with a conical base and thick walls, belongs to a group of containers found on most of the sites of the Medieval period in the Islamic world, from Egypt to Iran and Afghanistan. Their function has raised some debate. Often called "eolipile", these phials dated between the tenth and the thirteenth century present several common elements. Usually small (around 11 cm in height, with a few exceptions of about 20 cm), they are most often made of fireclay. They have a gravelly appearance and a dark colour, resulting from having been fired at a high temperature, which makes them waterproof. The neck, narrow and short, often has a groove to which a threaded cap may have been attached. Unstable without support because of their shape, these containers can only be set down at an angle, unless they are set on a ring-shaped base or on sand.

This example is decorated with intertwined dragons or snakes with gaping mouths alternating with a botanical motif and a rosette in a circle. Dragons were supposed to chase away evil spirits and had a magical value during the Zangid and Ayyubid periods. They are found on monuments[1] and objects, such as door knockers[2], manuscripts[3] or sculptures[4].

Several hypotheses regarding the function of these vessels have been put forward. It seems that these containers were used as military grenades because of their thick walls and their small openings, but this theory was refuted because the military treatises of the period, especially the one by Ibn Aranbugha Al-Zaradkash (Hegira 867/1462-63), described a great number of incendiary projectiles, not one of which corresponds to these containers. Furthermore, the necks are too narrow for pouring the thick, viscous flammable oils. According to another hypothesis, these containers were used as eolipiles to fan the fire with steam, a process that dates back to the Roman period. It is thought that animal-shaped examples of the Islamic period may have been used for this purpose. No specimen has survived the Classic period, but earthenware eolipiles in the shape of human figures from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were found in Europe.

It was also thought that these containers were used to carry mercury, traces of which were apparently discovered in examples found at Sidon (Lebanon) and Russian Turkestan. This supposition is supported by the Bayân al-sinâ‘ât (treatise on the trades) of the physician Aba Al-Fadl Al-Tiflisi (twelfth – thirteenth centuries), where he mentions that mercury, a volatile and corrosive substance used in the preparation of certain pigments, was mixed with sulphur in sphero-conical containers, but made of glass[5]. These vessels may therefore have been used for alchemy preparations, but they may also have been used as ink wells. This last hypothesis is based on an Ottoman manuscript, the Shâhinshâh-nâmeh (story of the king of kings), dated 1581[6], showing similar objects on a table near a figure who is writing in an observatory of Istanbul during the reign of Sultan Murad III.

Finally, inscriptions on some containers of this type may give us reason to believe that they were used for drinking beer. These examples, called fuqqa‘ah, came from Iran and were attributed to the tenth – eleventh centuries. Others yet may have been perfume phials or nebulisers, as attested by an inscription on a container, discovered in Azerbaidjan, and addressed to a woman.

[2] Cirze (Anatolia), door knocker of the Ulu Camii mosque; Berlin, Museum für islamische Kunst, I 2242.

[3] Frontispiece and last page of the Kitab al-diryâq (book of antidotes), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, arabe 2964.

[4] Plaque with dragons, Cairo Caire, Islamic Art Museum, 1120.

[5] There are, in fact, a few glass "eolipile" vessels. Cf. Paris, Louvre Museum, OA 7448.