Ca. 800-500 BC. A bronze bowl featuring a hemispherical body with a brilliant patina enhancing the entire surface. This beautiful bowl may have been used on ritual occasions and during banqueting. The Achaemenid Empire (the first Persian empire) was an ancient empire founded by Cyrus the Great and stretching from the Balkans and Eastern Europe to the Indus Valley and covering 5.5 million square kilometres at its height. This empire is also famous for being the antagonist of the Greek city states during the Greco-Persian wars.Size: L:138mm / W:48mm ; 225gProvenance: Property of a West London gentleman; previously in a collection formed on the UK/International art market in the 1990s.