Title: The Blacas ewer
Description: Brass ewer; engraved and inlaid with silver and copper. Made of sheet brass hammered to form a faceted body. Inscription and panels with various figural images (e.g. hunting, battles, courtly entertainment) on a background filled with geometrical patterns. Panels with common outline and linked and lobed frame. Top and part of shoulder of ewer damaged.
Culture/period: Middle Islamic
Date: April 1232 (Rajab 629 AH)
Production place: Mosul, northern Iraq
Materials: brass with silver & copper inlay
Technique: inlaid, engraved
Dimensions:
    Height: 30.4 centimetres
    Width: 22 centimetres
    Depth: 21.5 centimetres
Inscriptions:
    Inscription Language: Arabic
    Inscription Transliteration: Shuja` ibn Man`a al-Mausili
    Inscription Comment: name of maker
British Museum 1866,1229.61

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Referenced as figure 296 in The military technology of classical Islam by D Nicolle
296. Inlaid metal ewer by Shujaʿ ibn Manā, The Blacas Ewer, 1232 AD, Jazīrah (? ), British Museum (Ric I, Pope),

pp. 415-416. One pictorial source from just after Salah al Din's death, and from the region where some of the best siege troops were recruited, shows an infantryman with a short spear (Fig. 284). Similarly equipped troops appear in both Christian and Muslim, art of this area in the following century and probably indicate that these men and their reputations lasted right up until the Mongol invasions (Figs. 288, 289, 292, 294, 296, 297, 298, 299, 302, 305 and 306).