Did Ernst Herzfeld Find the Qaṣʿat Firʿawn (Pharaoh’s Bowl) in the Caliphal Palace at Samarra?

Abstract

Ernst Herzfeld’s (1879–1948) papers on his excavation of the Abbasid city of Samarra, held at the National Museum of Asian Art Archives, include two maps indicating the existence of a large circular basin at the center of the square domed chamber south of the Caliphal Palace’s throne room. The details of this basin are provided in an orthographic drawing, and the captions of two photographs tersely attribute it to the palace. Now in the Madrasa al-Sharābiya in Baghdad, this basin has sometimes been identified as Qaṣʿat Firʿawn (Pharaoh’s Bowl), a large basin cited in medieval sources as having been part of the fountain of the Great Mosque of al-Mutawakkil. Strangely enough, not the slightest mention of this basin has been found in the written records of the excavations or in the published reports. A careful examination of other documents in Herzfeld’s archives and publications, as well as a number of reports of the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities, has established that the basin must have been discovered under unknown circumstances at an unspecified location in the palace several years after Herzfeld’s excavation. Furthermore, the study of medieval textual sources and other data related to the basin has shown that the latter is not Qaṣʿat Firʿawn but might well have been a similar basin. Originally a Roman labrum, the basin in question was repurposed during the Abbasid period as part of a low fountain with a unique water-circulation system that bears some similarities to the fountains of Islamic Spain.