Sevilla No. 1 / Hispalis

Noted and illustrated in Palol (1967) as a baptismal font of the Visigothic period now in the Museo Arqueologico Provincial de Sevilla, in Seville, Spain. It is a shallow rectangular basin resembling a small bath-tub; the middle of the front [narrow] side is ornamented with a branch and a flower, both small, between two vertical lines; on either side of this, two large acanthus (?) flowers; these large flowers appear also on the narrow sides; the sides [long] share the scroll ends of the narrow-side plants, and have a cross in the centre flanked by two facing fish; the upper rim [long sides] has a central flower-in-a-circle motif flanked by a simple interlace; the upper rim side has chevron striations pointing to the centre in which a five-petal flower/leaf(?) appears inside a circle. [NB: Palol (ibid.) notes that this Sevillian font had been described in earlier sources [C. Fernandez-Chicarro (1952-1953) as a cymatium ["cimacio"] but Palol adds: "Pero no creemos que se trate de un este elemento arquitectónico [cimacio] sino de una auténtica pila bautismal"].