Ablutions font
Lisbon, Portugal
National Museum of Archaeology
About National Museum of Archaeology, Lisbon.
Hegira 6th century / AD 12th century
E. 6456
Sculpted marble.
Height 18 cm, diameter 53.5 cm
Almohad
Cacela (?) (Faro).
Ablutions font with a circular bowl, formed with eight lobes in the style of a flower. It has a unique decoration on the outside of the rim, a band in relief bearing an epigraph. Water has worn this away, obliterating the letters on the outer curves, with just a few remaining on the corners where the lobes meet. On one of them it is possible to read the beginning of the Basmala (first verse of the Qur'an) and everything leads us to suppose that this was completed with a quotation from the Qur'an, as was common on facilities of this kind related to ritual ablutions at the entrances to mosques. Another specimen of similar characteristics and probably from the same period is known in the Lisbon area.
View Short DescriptionAlmohad ablutions font decorated on the outside of the rim with a band inscribed in relief with the beginning of the basmala, which suggests that it also included a Qur’anic inscription. This piece was probably related to the ablutions ritual practised when entering a mosque.
The style of lettering dates it to the Almohad period.
It was probably taken to the National Museum of Archaeology by Dr José Leite de Vasconcelos.
Dr José Leite de Vasconcelos left notes in the National Museum of Archaeology to the effect that it belonged to the collection of Estácio da Veiga and that it probably came from Cacela.
Borges, A. G. M., “Pia de Abluções”, in Portugal Islâmico, Lisbon, 1999, p.265.
Labarta, A. and Barceló, C., “Inscripciones Árabes Portuguesas: Situación Actual”, Al-Qantara, 8, 1987, p.404.
Nykl, A. R., “Arabic Inscriptions in Portugal”, Ars Islamica, 11–12, 1946, p.173.
Nykl, A. R., “Inscrições Árabes no Museu Etnológico do Dr. José Leite de Vasconcelos”, Ethnos, 2, Lisbon, 1942, pp.27–8.
Vasconcelos, J. L., Etnografia Portuguesa: Tentame de Sistematização, Vol. 4, Lisbon, 1982.
Artur Goulart de Melo Borges "Ablutions font" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;pt;Mus01_C;35;en
MWNF Working Number: PT 46
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