A Large Safavid magic bowl, Persia, dated A.H. 1138/A.D. 1725-6

of deep rounded form supported on a raised foot, with narrow everted rim and raised omphalos with attached circular tray with pierced rim, the interior and exterior engraved with overlapping roundels enclosing talismanic inscriptions, the omphalos and outer rim engraved with monumental calligraphy, zodiac roundels to exterior

inscriptions

Quotations from the Qur'an, the nada 'ali quatrain, invocations to Muhammad and 'Ali, call to God to bless 'The Fourteen Innocents' and a Persian inscription round the base regarding bequests (not all deciphered) with the date 1138 (A.D. 1725-6).

This bowl relates to a group that were produced from the late seventeenth century onwards identified by the distinctive circular cup with holes attached to the central conical boss. Metal tags with inscriptions usually the basmalah or some of the asma al-husna would have been attached to the holes. Metal fish, birds and amulets were sometimes attached to the boss or in this case possibly the rim as indicated by the holes around the rim of the bowl. A mid seventeenth-century bowl in the Science Museum, London, Welcome Collection, (inv.no.A128451, unpublished) has holes drilled at regular intervals around the rim and later tags attached. Also see Paris 1996, p. 227, no. 190 for a seventeenth-century Indian magic bowl with inscribed metal fish attached to the rim.