Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes
Date5th century BCE
DimensionsH: 3 7/8 in. (9.8 cm); Rim Diam: 1 5/16 in. (3.4 cm); Diam: 15/16 in. (2.4 cm)
Mediumglass
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.144
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron with an opaque red-brown ground and decoration in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue. The vessel features a broad, uneven horizontal rim-disk, cylindrical neck, rounded shoulder, and straight-sided cylindrical body tapering to a convex bottom. Two large opaque red-brown ring handles with knobbed tails are attached just below the shoulder. An unmarvered opaque yellow thread is applied at the rim edge. A second yellow thread and a turquoise-blue thread, both marvered, begin diagonally on the neck and are wound spirally—first in nearly horizontal lines, then tooled into a tight zigzag pattern extending to the bottom—where the threads resume horizontal winding. The vessel was made using the core-forming technique, with the rim-disk and handles added separately, and further decorated with 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. 86, p. 140.Comparative ReferencesSee also Hayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, fig. 8, p. 10.
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late 6th through 5th centuries BCE
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