File:BOWL (FindID 890883).jpg

An incomplete late Roman Irchester bowl which was deposited with the rim facing the surface. Roughly a third of the bowl is missing.

The bowl is 85mm in height, the base is convex and from the base the body expands to its maximum width just below the rim (256mm) before tapering inwards slightly to the rim (236mm) which has a bevelled edge (2.5mm thick). The omphalos base is convex on the outside and is domed upwards in the centre (70mm in diameter), internally the centre of the raised boss to the rim is 81mm. The base is perforated presumibly evidence of manufacture on a lathe.

The Irchester type bowl has incurving sides, an omphalos base and an in-turned rim. Irchester bowls are generally accepted to have been hanging basins manufactured in the 4^th or 5^th centuries in Britain although still circulating in the early Anglo-Saxon period. The uniformity of the design suggests that the vessel was a product of one or more centralised or associated workshops, and that they were used as part of a dinner service or perhaps for hand washing. Examples from elsewhere in the south of Britain include Amersham, Buckinghamshire; Drapers Garden, London; Wotton, Surrey; Pewsey; Wiltshire, Pewsey (Stanchester); Wiltshire, and, Bishops Canning, Wiltshire.