Sphero-conical Vessel

3D Model

This is a sphero-conical vessel, about the size of an adult human’s fist. It has thick walls, marked with grooves, narrows opening on the top, with a short neck. The vessel shares its shape with a large group of pottery vessels from the medieval Middle East, which were for a long time considered to be medieval hand grenades, but some historians think they were used for other purposes.

Similar grenade-like objects may have been in use in 683, when the Umayyad army used explosives in a battle against a rebellious governor. Nearly 500 years later, during the Crusades, the vizier to the Ayyubid Caliph handed the city of Cairo over to European crusaders; shortly afterwards, he turned against the Europeans, and used so-called “naphtha pots” to burn down the city. Grenade-like objects were particularly wide-spread in the Middle East and in parts of Russia between 11th and 14th centuries.