Unguent Bottle (Amphoriskos)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes

DateLate 6th - 5th century BCE

DimensionsH: 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm); Rim Diam: 1 3/16 in. (3 cm); Diam: 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.162

Not on View

DescriptionAmphoriskos. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Broad, inward sloping rim-disk; rather tall cylindrical neck; one side of the shoulder is almost right-angled, the other obtuse-angled; uneven conical body; circular cobalt-blue base-knob with an uneven, rounded edge. Two cobalt-blue vertical strap handles extend, respectively, from the shoulder to the top of the neck and from the shoulder to the upper part of the neck. A partly marvered opaque yellow thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; a second wide opaque yellow thread and one in opaque turquoise-blue, both marvered, begun on the shoulder and wound spirally, at first in horizontal lines, then tooled into a carelessly formed, close-set zigzag pattern to the lower body, where the threads are again wound spirally in a few horizontal lines. Core-formed glass; applied rim-disk, handles, and base-knob; applied marvered and unmarvered threads. Short vertical indentations caused by the tooling of the zigzags.

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. 99, p. 144, repr. (col.) p. 96.