The April Bowl
Unknown, Mosul workshop · About 1333
Near the tombs stands a broad bronze basin, wider than a man's arms can reach, its surface crowded with medallions, hunting scenes, figures on horseback and bands of gilded inscription. This is the Nisan Tası, the April Bowl, one of the most beautiful pieces of medieval metalwork in Turkey. It was made in Mosul in northern Iraq, the great centre of inlaid brass and bronze, for the Ilkhanid ruler Abu Said Bahadur Khan, and it was presented to the lodge in 1333 by the emir Sungur, a friend of the order. Every surface is worked: the interior with a sunburst of medallions, the outside with rows of riders and animals and a tall inscription giving the ruler's name and titles.
Look closely at the way the silver inlay catches the light against the dark bronze. The technique is to cut shallow channels in the metal and hammer thin silver and gold sheet into them, so that the figures seem drawn in bright line on a black ground. The hunting scenes, with their leaping hares, hounds and mounted archers, belong to a repertoire that Mosul craftsmen used for the courts of the Mongol Ilkhans, and they sit here beside Quranic verses with no sense of contradiction.
The bowl's name comes from its use. Every spring the dervishes set it out to collect the first rains of April, which were believed to carry a blessing. The tip of Rumi's turban was dipped in the water, and prayers were read over it, and small measures of the rainwater were then given to the sick or to anyone who asked, in the belief that it healed. The custom was shared by many dervish communities in Anatolia but nowhere else is the vessel so magnificent. The bowl has never left the lodge since it arrived and was one of the first objects the museum put on show in 1926.
Did You Know? The April rainwater collected in the bowl was mixed with a dip of Rumi's turban and given out as a cure, a custom that continued into the twentieth century.
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