Miniature offering table

Late Period

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 130

Miniature offering tables are a type of dedication to temples in the later periods.

On this table loaves and a vessel are depicted in relief on the table itself. A jackal (or a falcon?) sits at the forward corner and a second is missing, and two figures at the rear corners, although difficult to recognize, may represent baboons as known on other examples. A figure of a kneeling offerer would have sat at the rear of the table opposite the spout.

The tables seem to have been closely associated with situlae (libation vessels), both from some evidence of finds and from their decoration. It has been suggested that liquid would have been poured from the situla onto the small table as part of a ritual offering.

Miniature offering table, Bronze or copper alloy

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b&w accession photo