2,500 year-old 'one of a kind' glass bowl from ancient Persian Empire sells for £500,000... ten times its estimate

1. Vessel dates back to Achaemenid Empire in 4th or 5th century BC
2. Had been owned by British family since 1950s until they decided to sell it
3. Sale shocked auctioneers who expected bowl to go for £30,000-50,000
   

A 2,500-year-old glass bowl from the ancient Persian Empire has been sold for nearly £2,500 at auction.

The extraordinary antique has survived upheavals including the wars of Alexander the Great, the arrival of Islam and a string of colonial conflicts.

Amazingly, it has remained intact and apparently in near-mint condition ever since it was made in the 4th or 5th century BC.

Sold: This ancient Persian bowl went up for auction in London this week and fetched nearly £500,000

The 8in-wide green bowl had been a treasured keepsake for a British family which acquired it in the 1950s.

When they decided to sell the beautiful object, auctioneers Bonhams expected it to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000.

But at the auction of antiquities in London yesterday, the bowl was sold to an unnamed buyer for £481,250.

Made using the lost-wax casting method, the shallow bowl features a flared rim decorated with twelve projecting tear-shaped lobes interspersed with twelve elongated petals.

Rare: The green glass vessel would have been a high-status object when it was made 2,500 years ago

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THE FIRST PERSIAN EMPIRE

The Achaemenid Empire was founded in the 6th century BC by Cyrus the Great, who to this day is venerated as one of the greatest figures in Persian history. Its rulers presided over the largest empire in the history of the world at the time, stretching from Egypt and Greece as far as modern-day India. Emperors such as Xerxes and Darius fought a series of wars with the Greeks, immortalised in the works of Herodotus, known as the 'Father of History'. One of the best-known moments in Achaemenid history is the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when 300 Spartans almost managed to defeat up to 150,000 Persians, as depicted in the film 300. The dynasty came to an end in 334 BC, when Alexander the Great invaded from Macedonia and imposed Greek rule over Persia.

'This bowl really is one of a kind,' said Bonhams' head of antiquities Madeleine Perridge. 'Bowls like this were made by expert craftsmen and were not mass produced.

'They are incredibly rare and hardly ever come on the market. The fact that this one is still intact after 2,500 years is amazing.

'We knew it was a special item and our pre-sale estimate was conservative, but we weren't expecting it to do quite as well as it did.

'There was a real buzz in the auction room with bids coming in from all angles.

'We had the real pleasure of breaking the good news to the vendor at the end of the auction.'

The bowl dates back to the time of the Achaemenid Empire, the first dynasty to rule over all of modern-day Iran.

It was made shortly before Macedonian king Alexander the Great invaded in 334 BC.

The exact history of the bowl before it came to the UK is unknown, but it would have been a highly prized object owned by a wealthy Persian family

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