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Triple Tube with Looped Trails

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Triple Tube with Looped Trails
Image Not Available for Triple Tube with Looped Trails

Triple Tube with Looped Trails

Place of OriginRoman Empire, Palestine
DateSixth to early seventh century
DimensionsH: 4 11/16 in. (11.8 cm); Rim Diam: 1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm); Body Diam: 1 3/8 in. (3.4 cm)
MediumGlass; free-blown and tooled.
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.1307
Not on View
DescriptionThis free-blown and tooled glass vessel, classified as a Triple Tube IG3a, consists of an irregular three-sided body with three tubular compartments bundled together. The tubes narrow slightly toward the waist and broaden toward a flat base. The vessel cannot stand on its own because of the irregular pontil wad that remains at the base. The hollow rim is folded inward and downward. The glass is transparent to translucent grayish-green (5 G 5/2) with similarly colored looped trails and thread decoration. The vessel is made of medium thin glass. The fabric cannot be determined because of weathering. The pontil mark measures approximately 1.6 cm in diameter. The body is pinched twice lengthwise. Five looped trails are attached at irregular intervals around the middle of the body. Each trail is touched down to the surface three times (except for one trail which touches down twice) to form three curling loops, then attached just below the rim and folded inward, upward, and inward again over the rim. Excess glass at the tips of the trails is clipped off. From just below the rim to above the base, at least eighteen revolutions of thin thread decoration are trailed from right to left, first upward and then downward. The thread decoration was applied after the body was pinched.

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