Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes
DateLate 6th - 5th century BCE
DimensionsH: 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm); Rim Diam: 1 in. (2.6 cm); Diam: 1 1/4 in. (3.2 cm)
MediumCore-formed glass; applied rim-disk and handles; applied marvered and unmarvered threads; distinct horizontal tooling mark at the junction of the neck and shoulder. Pronounced vertical indentations on the body caused by the tooling of the zigzags.
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.340
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque white and opaque yellow decoration. Outsplayed rim-disk with a rounded edge, sloping obliquely inward; rather tall cylindrical neck, bulging slightly at its middle; obtuse-angled shoulder; elongated oval body with upward taper; convex bottom. Below the shoulder, two vertical ring handles, one cobalt blue, the other divided vertically into opaque white and cobalt-blue halves, each with a knobbed tail. A carelessly marvered opaque white thread attached at the edge and on the upperside of the rim-disk; a second opaque white thread, marvered, begun on the neck and wound spirally in wavy lines to the middle of the handle zone, where a wide marvered opaque yellow thread is added, mingling with the white; at the middle of the body, four narrow opaque white threads, flanked at the top and bottom by wide opaque yellow threads, begun and tooled into a zigzag pattern; below this, a wide marvered opaque yellow thread is wound horizontally once around the body, and below this, a carelessly formed opaque white thread, marvered, is wound almost horizontally in wavy lines to the center of the bottom.
Published ReferencesHayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, p. 9.
Grose, David F., Early Ancient Glass: Core-formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50, New York, Hudson Hills Press in association with the Toledo Museum of Art, 1989, cat. no. 78, pp. 137-138.
3rd century BCE
3rd through 2nd century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
5th century BCE
late 6th through 5th century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
Late 6th -early 5th century BCE
Late 4th-early 3rd BCE
Probably first half of 5th century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
late 19th-early 20th century
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