Dumbarton Oaks sources this ceramic as coming from the Byzantine Institute of America. The Byzantine Institute was founded by Thomas Whittemore in 1930. As a founder, his goal was to conserve, restore, and study the art of the Byzantine Empire. In 1968, Paul Atkins Underwood took over the Institute’s fieldwork and began restoring the Hagia Sophia and Kariye Camii in Istanbul, Turkey. 

The Hagia Sophia was first converted into a museum after being an Eastern Orthodox Church for one thousand years by the first President of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. President Ataturk also granted the Byzantine Institute permission to restore the original mosaics in the Hagia Sophia. 

 

The Kariye Camii is one of the oldest religious buildings of Byzantine Constantinople or modern-day Istanbul. The building had numerous functions in faith throughout history ranging from a Christian monastery to a mosque. The original name of the Church was the Chora monastery, but the change to Kariye is an Arabic word meaning “countryside.” 



In 2004, Professor Holger Klein of Columbia University curated an exhibition named “Restoring Byzantium: The Rediscovery and Restoration of the Kariye Camii,” which displayed the “Byzantine or Crusader Bowl". Given the number of excavations of the Kariye Camii and the Islamic influence on the Church, it is possible that the bowl was discovered either in the Church itself or in surrounding regions. It is unknown, though, if the bowl was produced immediately near Constantinople.