Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean
Date2nd through mid-1st century BCE
DimensionsH: 5 3/16 in. (13.1 cm); Diam: 1 1/4 in. (3.2 cm); Diam: 1 5/8 in. (4.1 cm)
Mediumglass
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.84
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron. Dark blue ground with opaque yellow (appearing orangish or even greenish) and opaque white decoration. Narrow rim-disk, uneven and sloping inward, with a rounded edge; tall, uneven cylindrical neck with slight downward taper; uneven shoulder with an almost right-angled junction with the neck; elongated oval body with convex sides, tapering inward near the bottom; convex bottom. Below the shoulder, two dark blue lugs, placed at different heights on the body, one carefully formed and flattened with a depression facing outward, the other a rounded mass of threads. A carelessly formed, marvered opaque yellow thread drawn twice across the upperside of the rim-disk, then wound diagonally in wavy lines to the shoulder, where it joins a marvered opaque white thread that begins on the neck; below this, both are tooled into a widely spaced feather pattern arranged in ten vertical panels extending to the basal angle. Core-formed; applied rim-disk and lugs; applied marvered threads; tooling marks on the neck and shoulder.
Published ReferencesHayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, p. 13.
Grose, 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. 164, p. 167-168, repr. (col.) p. 107.
Mid-fourth through early third centuries BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
4th-early 3rd century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
4th-3rd century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd century BCE
4th-3rd century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd century BCE
mid 4th-early 3rd centuries BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
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