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© Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Empúries
Omeka ID 104
Empúries. Ciutat Romana
Rome

ritual vase, Sabah vase

MAC EMP-00247

Object type
vase
Production date
100 / 150
Fabric
common pottery local production
Museum
Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Empúries
Culture
Rome
Discovery location
Empúries. Ciutat Romana
Materials
terracotta
Township
Escala, l' (Europa, Espanya, Catalunya, Girona, Alt Empordà)
Technique
wheel-thrown
Where is it?
Exposició permanent
Dimensions
196 x 196 mm
Description
Vase with symbols alluding to the cult of Sabah, dated to the 2nd century AD. It is a pottery vase with two opposing handles, an almost flat base, a globular body, a truncated cone neck and a lip that opens outwards, from the upper levels of the Campo Ramis silo in the Roman city of Empúries. The exceptional nature of this piece lies in the decoration made up of several small clay figures applied to the outer wall of the vessel. The decoration forms two identical compositions, one on each side, that occupy the upper half. There are five different symbolic elements representing a single radius, a crescent mole, a salamander, a toad and a snake. These vessels are linked to the cult of Sabah, a deity of Thracian origin, which spread through Greece to Rome. There are other objects linked to this cult, such as the pantheon hands or metal plates with reliefs like those on display at the Girona headquarters of the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia, also from Empúries. This was a mystical and initiatory cult, in which meetings and banquets were held, where symbolic weddings took place between the initiate and the god, who sought the resurrection and promised happiness for life in the Beyond.

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