Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean
Date3rd through 2nd century BCE
DimensionsH: 4 7/16 in. (11.2 cm); Rim Diam: 1 1/8 in. (2.9 cm); Diam: 1 1/8 in. (2.8 cm)
MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk and handles; applied marvered threads. Faint vertical indentations on the body caused by the tooling of the zigzags.
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.344
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque yellow (appearing orangish) and opaque white decoration. Moderately broad, lopsided rim-disk, with a rounded edge; tall cylindrical neck with upward taper; rounded shoulder; cylindrical body, tapering inward near the bottom; convex bottom. Below the shoulder, two horizontal cobalt-blue coiled knob handles, each with a depression facing upward. A marvered opaque yellow thread begun on the upperside of the rim-disk and wound spirally on and under the rim-disk and around the neck, where a marvered opaque white thread is added, mingling with the yellow thread to the level of the handles, where both threads are tooled into an irregular, close-set zigzag pattern and then into horizontal lines around the lower body and bottom.
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. 162, p. 167.
3rd century BCE
Late 6th - 5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
3rd century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Mid-4th to early 3rd century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
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