Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes
Date5th century BCE
DimensionsH: 5 1/8 in. (13 cm); Rim Diam: 1 7/16 in. (3.7 cm); Diam: 1 5/16 in. (3.3 cm)
Mediumglass
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.179
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron. Dark ground, possibly dark green (appearing black), with opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Broad horizontal rim-disk; short cylindrical neck; rounded shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body with upward taper; convex bottom. Below the shoulder, two "black" vertical ring handles with knobbed tails. An unmarvered opaque turquoise-blue thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; a second opaque turquoise-blue thread and one in opaque yellow, both marvered, begun on the neck and wound spirally, at first in almost horizontal lines, then tooled into an uneven, close-set zigzag pattern from the middle of the body to above the bottom, where the threads are again wound horizontally in a few lines. Core-formed glass; applied rim-disk and handles; 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. 82, p. 139, repr. (col.) p. 97.Comparative ReferencesSee also von Saldern, Axel, et al., Gläser Der Antike, Sammlung Oppenländer, Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1974, fig. 185, pp. 72-73.
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
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