BASON. This appears as the rendering in the A. V. of—I, the Heb. ID (Exod. xii. 22 ; 2 Sam.
xvii. 28; I Kings vii. 50; Jer. Ili. 19), elsewhere rendered cup (Zech. xii. 2); 2, nit] (I Chron.
xxviii. 17; Ezra i. TO ; viii. 27) ; 3, (Exod.
xxiv. 6), rendered goblet (Song vii. 3) ; cups (Is. xxii. 24) ; 4, )fl (1 Kings vii. 40, 45; 2 Chron.
iv. 8, It ; Num)). iv. 14), translated bowl (Num. vii. 13, 25), and, 5, of the Gr. YL7rT4 (John xiii. 5). That all these were hollow vessels, adapted to receive and contain liquids, is certain, but what was their general form, and wherein the peculiarity of each consisted, we have no means of determin ing. On the Nineveh monuments are sculptures of vessels resembling a porringer or large modern tea-cup, others approaching more to the form of a saucer, in some cases with a projecting handle, and others more of a vase shape. It is probable that in diameter and t inch in depth. [BOTTLE.]— W. L. A.
the vessels of the Jews were much the same, only some of the vessels above mentioned, such as the bason which held the blood of the sacrifice, and the bason used by our Lord when He washed His disciples' feet, must have been of a larger size, in respect both of depth and of circumference. Of
the basons above mentioned several are expressly described as of metal, silver, gold, and brass; those for more common use were doubtless of earthen ware or stone. On the tomb of Rameses IV., there is a representation of a golden vase, which, as it is introduced among the trophies of that monarch's conquest of the Philistines or Canaanites, may pro bably supply a specimen of a vessel in use among the Jews. In Mr. Layard's Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 509 ff, there is a description, with drawings, of a set of very curious bowls of terra cotta, with inscriptions around the inner margin in the ancient Chaldean language, written in characters previously unknown in Europe; these were found on the banks of the Euphrates and in the ruins of ancient Babylonia, and are undoubtedly of Jewish origin. They are from 44 inches in diameter, and not more than 2 inches in depth. The writer of this has in his pos session a stone basin of modern workmanship, round the inside of which is an Arabic inscription in two lines ; it is a little more than 3 inches