Unguent Bottle (Aryballos)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly Rhodes

DateLate 6th through 5th centuries BCE

DimensionsH: 2 1/4 in. (5.7 cm); Rim Diam: 1 in. (2.5 cm); Diam: 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.98

Not on View

DescriptionThis unguent bottle (aryballos) has an opaque dark gray-green ground streaked with opaque red, and is decorated with opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. It features a broad, inward-sloping rim-disk, a cylindrical neck, an obtuse-angled shoulder, and an almost spherical body that tapers to a convex, somewhat pointed bottom. Two vertical ring handles in matching opaque gray-green glass, with knobbed tails, extend from the shoulder to the underside of the rim-disk. Two unmarvered threads—opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue—are attached at the edge of the rim-disk. A wide marvered opaque yellow thread begins on the shoulder and is wound spirally, first in several horizontal lines, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern to the middle of the body. At this point, a marvered opaque turquoise-blue thread is introduced, interlacing with the yellow thread. Below this, a final marvered opaque yellow thread is wound horizontally twice around the lower body. The vessel is core-formed, with applied rim-disk and handles, and applied marvered and unmarvered threads.

Published ReferencesGrose, 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. 119, p. 151, repr. (col.) p. 99.Comparative ReferencesSee also Hayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, no. 15, p. 11.