The ornamental bird is the most prominent feature of Philistine vessels. Usually the bird’s head faces backward but sometimes it also faces forward. Bird ornamentations of this type were common in vessels from the Aegean region. The ornamental fish appears in Canaanite and Egyptian vessels but it too had roots across the sea. These ornamentations appeared in the 12th to 11th centuries BCE, and disappeared with the assimilation of the Philistines into their surrounding society.