Silver dish with vertical handles
These silver dishes likely formed a set together with the ladle and phiale (1989.281.66 and 1989.281.65). The dishes were cast and then turned down to their exact shape on a lathe. The hammer-formed handles and decorative florets in the center of the bowls suggest provincial workmanship.
These objects may have been made in Parthia, one of the successor kingdoms of the Near East. In the second half of the first century B.C., Parthia became a rival power of Rome, and intermittent warfare between the two empires continued until the Parthian Dynasty was overthrown by the Sassanians in the early third century A.D.