Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, Possibly Syria or Palestine
Date2nd through mid-1st century BCE
DimensionsH: 4 15/16 in. (12.5 cm); Rim Diam: 1 in. (2.6 cm); Diam: 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm)
MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk and lugs; applied marvered and unmarvered threads.
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.348
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque white and opaque yellow decoration. Moderately broad horizontal rim-disk, uneven and sloping inward, with a rounded edge; rather tall cylindrical neck, tapering downward; vestigial curving shoulder; elongated oval body; convex pointed bottom. Below the shoulder, two cobalt-blue lugs, one with a depression facing upward. An unmarvered opaque white thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk and wound spirally around the neck, where it is marvered, to the shoulder, where a marvered opaque yellow thread is added and mingles with it; at the shoulder both threads are tooled into an uneven feather pattern arranged in eight carelessly formed vertical panels extending to the 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. 165, p. 168.
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Late 6th - 5th century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Mid-4th to early 3rd century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
3rd century BCE
5th century BCE
New Kingdom, Eighteenth Dynasty, reigns of Amenhotep III to Akhenaten, about 1400 to 1350 B.C
3rd century BCE
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