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

DescriptionThis small core-formed unguent bottle has a blue ground with decoration in opaque yellow (appearing orangish) and opaque turquoise-blue. It features a broad, symmetrical horizontal rim-disk, a short cylindrical neck, a rounded shoulder, and a nearly cylindrical body with a slight taper toward the base. The convex bottom is flattened on one side. Two vertical blue ring handles with knobbed tails are applied below the shoulder. Decorative threads include an unmarvered opaque yellow thread attached at the rim-disk’s edge, followed by a marvered opaque yellow thread spiraled in nearly horizontal lines down the neck and tooled into a zigzag pattern to mid-body, where an opaque turquoise-blue thread is added. A final unmarvered opaque yellow thread is wound twice around the lower body. Tooling marks are visible on the rim-disk and body, with vertical indentations caused by the zigzag tooling.

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.