This dish represents a fairly common class of similarly shaped dishes and bowls.  They were made in large and small size, and with thinner or thicker rims.  Great numbers of them were placed in the royal tombs of the First to Third Dynasties. They may have held part of the funeral banquets for the living, or the eternal repast for the deceased.

Travertine bowls are very fragile, and so, like most others, this example has been extensively repaired.  The coloured bands, which add so much to the appeal of this stone, represent zones of weakness, particularly if an acidic material has lain in the bowl for any length of time.