Featured Need help with Hebrew translation on ancient pot.

Hello.

I have this old bronze pot which I want to know more about. It was gifted to me by my ant some donkey years ago. She was a fanatic collector of ancient antiques and such. She did told me what it was but I can not remember anymore as this was at least 30 years ago. It has Hebrew inscriptions and was hoping somebody could read.

It also has some figures on it of what looks to me like a human sacrifice, some animals, a man playing music to a woman with a sword and a few men with horns holding tablets in his hand.

Does somebody knows what this was used for or from which country it is. Knowing my ant this must be every old I guess otherwise she would not have collected it.

Thank you very much for taking the time.

 

Biblical figures: Moses with tablets; Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. Suspect a souvenir item. @komokwa And man with lute-type instrument could be Solomon & the Song of Songs.

 

Really strange pot.

I have a feeling the sacrifice scene is meant to be the binding of Issac, while the horned man holding the Ten Commandments is Moses (https://www.rome.info/michelangelo/moses/).

 

Interesting. Just researched it and your right. Biblical figures. Would never have known as I'm a atheist. Any guesses country of origins?

 

The convention of depicting Moses with horns comes from a mistranslation of the original word that meant something like 'radiant', the idea that something was projecting out from his head.

 

Israel? When we can read it, we will probably know.

 

Indeed a strange pot. What would it have been used for? My husband joked that it was a ceremonial pot to catch the blood from the animals when they sacrificed them for religious purpose. I don't know

 

I don't know why. But looks Coptic to me. Maybe Ethiopia or such?

 

Speaking of Hebrew translation issues:

http://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/jbq-p...ehoshet-copper-bronze-brass-plausible-tanakh/

 

The Copts are Christians & images on pot are Hebrew Bible only. Was your aunt the sort of person who would have made a trip to 'the Holy Land'?

 

The horns are throwing me off. I don't think a Jewish artist would depict Moses with horns. (Edit: Oops, late post.)

Jewish kosher slaughter forbids the collection of blood, I believe. I assume it was the same in the old days, for animals meant for sacrifice?

 

Agree with Bronwen on the scenes. It is from the Middle East, all countries there had Jewish communities, most still do.
I think the use of copper instead of brass, the general shape, and the profuse floral decoration could indicate Persia/Iran.

 

I'm speaking strictly without checking if I'm right, but think kosher slaughter of an animal for food purposes requires that it be bled out. What is done with the blood in that situation I do not know. I do know that in other early religious systems that used animal sacrifice as part of their rituals, if it was not burned, the meat was distributed to the people while the blood was reserved for the deity. Christian communion is unusual in that worshipers partake of both the body & blood of Christ.

 

Yeah, it is.

What I meant was that I've also read that the blood shouldn't be caught in a dish or pool of water, as the animal is being bled out.

 

Maybe because slaughtering of animals destined for the butcher is not a religious act, just following religious strictures.

 

Or to prevent the possibility of offering of blood to a deity?

 

I wouldn't know. She was not that religious either. But it's possible is guess.

 

Gotta watch out for those fatted calfs!

 

Do any of the characters look like this? Jerusalem as written in Hebrew. יְרוּשָׁלַיִם

 

I had a good look. And none of the inscriptions come close to this.