IFAO

During the Ifao excavations on the site of Douch between 1976 and 1981, three glass fragments bearing a very original painted decoration were discovered. They are surely related to another fragment which was found by the naturalist Cailliaud in 1818 on the same site. If we put all together, they will offer us the possibility to reconstruct and identify the representation of the thirty six decans, in a ring of twelve panels of three alternating colours (dark blue, red and gold) with three decans by panels. The analysis of the different groups of Roman painted glass which are issued from Egyptian workshops leads to date this piece to the IIIrd – IVth century AD. Its best parallels are the tabula Bianchini kept in the Louvre Museum and the ivory tablets from Grand. They help us to identify the different decans and to assign them to their zodiacal signs. This curious object, cut in a cast colourless annular base plate, was probably kept in a wooden box which hid the traces of reuse and was employed to cast horoscopes.