Bible Encyclopedias
Dish

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature

Fig. 149—Egyptian Dishes

Various kinds of dishes are mentioned in Scripture; but it is impossible to form any other idea of their particular forms than may be suggested by those of ancient Egypt and of the modern East, which have much resemblance to each other. The sites of such ancient towns as were built of sun-dried bricks are usually covered with broken potsherds, some of them large enough to indicate the form of the entire vessel. These are remarkably similar to those in modern use, and are for the most part made of a rather coarse earthenware, covered with a compact and strong glaze, with bright colors, mostly green, blue, or yellow. Dishes and other vessels of copper, coarsely but thickly tinned, are now much used in the East; but how far this may have been anciently the case we have not the means of knowing. The above figure represents a slave bringing dishes to table; the dishes have covers, and the manner in which they are carried on the reverted hand is the mode still used by Eastern servants.