Need help identifying a quasi-Arabic paten or vessel found in a Catholic Church

[Basilian]

Friends,

Several days ago, a Sister in our archdiocese found something shaped very much like a paten, but which also seems far too detailed. A priest said the text on it looks like Sanskrit, but I think it’s more like a later Syriac or Arabic script. The problem is that the words don’t seem to say anything - they’re not Naskh or any other script I am aware of. It’s as if the decorations are just “fake-Arabic” art made to look Oriental, alongside a few Celtic-esque ornaments.

Can anyone help me with this? What is the object likely to be?

i.imgur.com/jZuqf8v.jpg

 

[ssancho]

A few thoughts come to my mind.
It could simply be a forgery.
2)
There were a lot of languages that used Arabic script at some point in time. Some of them are listed on Omniglot’s Arabic page, such as:

Arabic, Äynu, Azeri, Baluchi, Beja, Bosnian, Brahui, Crimean Tatar, Dari, Gilaki, Hausa, Kabyle, Karakalpak, Konkani, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Khowar, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Malay, Marwari, Mandekan, Mazandarani | Morisco, Pashto, Persian/Farsi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Salar, Saraiki, Shabaki, Sindhi, Somali, Tatar, Tausūg, Turkish, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek and a number of other languages

Perhaps your artifact has one of these languages.
3)
You mentioned in your post that the artifact appears to have Arabic script and Celtic designs. That mix makes me think of Galicia or Asturias in what is now northwestern Spain. Those lands had a mix of Celtic and Arabic influence in the Middle Ages.

 

[MorEphrem]

The circular panels are patterns. The ovals on the four sides are Arabic inscriptions - although I read Arabic, my calligraphy reading is subpar so I’m not much help.

The bottom panel seems to say الهاعت علم لقنا which makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[Cojuanco]

IIRC what you have may be an example of Sicilian-Norman artistry. Remember that before the Normans, Sicily was under Muslim rule and the Normans often adopted many aspects of Arabic art and culture, including the elegant script that the Emirate period had encouraged. However, over time, as people started to lose the ability to speak, read or write Arabic, the calligraphy eventually degenerated into “whatever looks quasi-Arabic”. This is not exclusive to Sicily, though:



This is a gold coin minted by Offa, the King of Mercia in what is now England. It is meant to imitate in part the form of the gold dinar used by the Abbasids; yet the “Arabic” on the coin is largely gibberish.

 

[Basilian]

Wow! Very interesting replies!

I thought it was a forgery or some sort of “faux-Arabic” imagery. Thank you for the thoughts, all three of you!

 

[malphono]

It appears to be Damascene brass work. Such things come in various sizes (and can also be silver) and are often used for traditional “Turkish coffee” service. Large ones can serve as a brass tray for the cups and serving pot, while smaller ones can be used to hold pastries or cookies. Sometimes the underside is embossed with a small symbol, or some tiny script (the technical term for this escapes me at the moment, but I think it’s a “hallmark”), which is used to identify the provenance.

The inscription is another matter entirely: while I can read printed Arabic script, I’m not the best when it comes to manuscript. And then there is calligraphy, as we have here, and that is a task unto itself. Even some modern-day native speakers can’t manage it too well.