Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes
Date5th century BCE
DimensionsH: 4 1/8 in. (10.5 cm); Rim Diam: 1 1/4 in. (3.2 cm); Diam: 1 1/16 in. (2.7 cm)
Mediumglass
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.143
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron with an opaque dark brown ground and decoration in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue threads. The vessel has a broad horizontal rim-disk, a cylindrical neck, a pronounced rounded shoulder, and a straight-sided cylindrical body with an uneven surface, tapering to an almost flat bottom. Two vertical ring handles in dark brown glass are attached below the shoulder; they originally had knobbed tails. An unmarvered opaque yellow thread is affixed at the rim edge. A marvered opaque yellow thread and a marvered opaque turquoise-blue thread begin on the shoulder and spiral downward in wavy, nearly horizontal lines to just above the bottom. The vessel is core-formed, with applied rim-disk, handles, and both 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. 89, p. 141.Comparative ReferencesSee also Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Glassmmlung Hentrich, Band 3, 1974, fig, 2, p. 23. (Although this alabastron has threads applied in zig-zag instead of in straight lines, it seems to be of the same uncertain color as TMA's piece)
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd century BCE
5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late 6th through 5th centuries BCE
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