Bulbous Jar with Zigzag Neck Coil and Basket Handle

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Bulbous Jar with Zigzag Neck Coil and Basket Handle

Place of OriginRoman Empire, Palestine

DateLate 4th to early 5th century

DimensionsH: 7 in. (17.8 cm); Rim Diam: 2 15/16 in. (7.5 cm); Diam (body): 4 in. (10.2 cm)

MediumGlass; free blown; tooled; applied decoration and handle.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.1027

Not on View

DescriptionThis bulbous jar, classified as Jar Class IE2a, was free-blown with tooled and applied decoration and a basket handle. The glass is medium thin with numerous pinprick and small bubbles. The body is transparent natural pale green (near 10 G 6/2) with a greenish tinge, while the handle, coil, and thread are translucent dusky green (near 5 G 3/2). The pontil mark is about 1.6 cm in diameter. Excess glass at the tips of the handles and at the end of the zigzag was drawn out thin and snapped off. The collar rim is rounded in flame above an open cutout. The neck is deeply concave, transitioning smoothly into a sloping shoulder. The elongated bulbous body has its greatest diameter at the midpoint above a concave base with kick. A curved basket handle, made from a heavy coil round in cross-section, is applied to the top and exterior of the rim on one side and attached to the rim on the opposite side. A regular, freestanding zigzag coil is applied to the shoulder and attached to the rim, trailed on from left to right with twenty-two segments between shoulder and rim. From base to mouth, the body is decorated with three rows of zigzags and five revolutions of thread, trailed horizontally from right to left in six separate threads.