The Orpheus bowl of Cologne

ORPHEUS project, 2019-2020

The Orpheus bowl is a ceramic piece dating from the second half of the 3rd or the 4th century, now held in Cologne at the Römisch-Germanisches Museum.

The ORPHEUS mission was led between 2019 and 2020 by Audrey Lecorgne and Julian Cuvilliez, in partnership with the Musée de la Maison Belge, the Römisch-Germanisches Museum and the Centre de Ressources Techniques de Morlaix. This PRIAE initiative continues its work of digital inventory. The photographer Laureen Keravec followed the mission at every stage, allowing a wide public to discover both this exceptional heritage and the new professions of archaeology.

The Orpheus bowl

The Orpheus bowl was discovered near the church of St. Severin in Cologne, in the area of a Roman cemetery. Made of ceramic, the bowl has the shape of a spherical segment, 20.6 cm in diameter, with an inner surface decorated in relief.

The decoration shows Orpheus holding a plectrum in his right hand and playing the lyre among wild animals arranged in nine registers.

The animals depicted include species of Egyptian fauna, which has led some archaeologists to think that the bowl was produced in a North African pottery workshop. Others, however, consider that it may have been produced in the northern provinces of the Roman Empire, with an iconography copied from silver bowls influenced by Egyptian or Alexandrian art.

Another similar, though incomplete, bowl was found in Strasbourg and was then restored with the help of the Cologne specimen. The Orpheus bowl is a unique and fascinating object, showing a combination of Roman culture and Egyptian influences. The Orpheus motif is a classic of the ancient and Gallo-Roman period and is found in many forms and media. What makes this bowl special is its particularly elaborate relief and its typology, which shows Mediterranean influence reaching the most distant territories of the Roman Empire.

Team