Dorchester Pot is a metal vase-like object that was recovered in two pieces after an explosion used to break up rock at Meeting House Hill, in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1852.
The Roxbury Conglomerate, from which this pot is alleged to have come, has been dated as having accumulated between 570 and 593 million years ago and during the Ediacaran Period.
It accumulated at the bottom of a deep rift basin, which was filled with marine water, within submarine fan and slope environments.
Reconstructing the vessel, it was found to have been bell-shaped, 114 mm (4½ inches) high, 165 mm (6½ inches) in diameter at the base and 63.5 mm (2½ inches) in diameter at the mouth. The metal was about 3 mm (⅛ inch) thick. The metal was described as resembling zinc or a silver alloy. The decoration included six inlaid silver flowers and an inlaid silver vine around the base.
The Dorchester Pot is often discussed as an Out-of-place artifact by various popular books and articles about unsolved mysteries, alternative science, and different types of creationism.
Infact, this vase is actually almost identical, as in both shape and decorations, to an Indian pipe-holder stored at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (ex Prince of Wales Museum) of Mumbai.
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