Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly Rhodes

DateLate sixth through fifth centuries BCE

DimensionsH: 3 5/8 in. (9.2 cm); Rim Diam: 1 1/8 in. (2.9 cm); Diam: 1 1/16 in. (2.7 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.105

Not on View

DescriptionSmall alabastron. Blue ground with opaque yellow (appearing orangish) and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Broad horizontal rim-disk, unusually symmetrical and even on its upper- and undersides; short cylindrical neck; round-angled shoulder; almost cylindrical body with slight upward taper; convex bottom flat on one side. Below the shoulder, two blue vertical ring handles with knobbed tails. An unmarvered opaque yellow thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; a second opaque yellow thread, marvered, begun on the neck and wound spirally, at first in almost horizontal lines, then tooled into a zigzag pattern to just above the middle of the body, where an opaque turquoise-blue thread is added, mingling with the yellow; below this, a third opaque yellow thread, unmarvered, is wound horizontally twice around the body. Core-formed; applied rim-disk and handles; applied marvered and unmarvered threads; tooling marks on the upperside of the rim-disk. Vertical indentations on the body 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. 76, p.137, repr. (col.) p. 96.

Jones, Janet Duncan, "Glass vessels from Gordion: trade and influence along the Royal Road," in Kealhofer, Lisa, ed., The Archeology of Midas and the Phrygians: Recent Work at Gordion, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, 2005, p. 103, fig. 8-2.

Comparative ReferencesSee also von Saldern, Axel, et al., Gläser Der Antike, (Sammlung Oppenländer), Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1974, fig. 165, p. 67.