Mandaean Artifacts in the British Museum

Mandaean Artifacts in the British Museum September 19, 2011

Via AWOL and Abnormal Interests, many of us had drawn to our attention the fact that the British Museum has made digital images of some of its collections available online.

I did what anyone would do (well, anyone with my particular interests): I typed in “Mandaean.”

It came up with a few incantation bowls – and one object that made me catch my breath.

The object pictured on the right is a flask dated to the first century, and when I saw the snippet of the catalog entry indicating that this is a flask dated to the first century with a Mandaic inscription, I wondered whether this was a mistake, or a find the importance of which had somehow been overlooked.

As it turns out, the full entry suggests that the flask is from the first century but the writing on it from the fifth.

It would still be worth looking into how the object and the writing on it were dated. But at the very least, hopefully this illustrates the sort of interesting thing you might find if you take a look at what the British Library has made available!


Browse Our Archives