Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly Syro-Palestinian region
Date2nd through mid-1st century BCE
DimensionsH: 4 15/16 in. (12.5 cm); Rim Diam: 15/16 in. (2.4 cm); Diam: 1 7/16 in. (3.7 cm)
MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk and lugs; applied marvered threads.
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.349
Not on View
DescriptionAlabastron. Dark blue ground (appearing black) with opaque yellow (appearing orangish) decoration. Moderately broad lopsided rim-disk, uneven with a slight inward taper, with the lip rising vertically above the level of the rim-disk; moderately tall cylindrical neck tapering slightly upward; vestigial shoulder; straight-sided fusiform body; almost pointed bottom. Below the shoulder, two blue lugs, each with a depression, one facing diagonally outward, the other upward. A marvered opaque yellow thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk and wound spirally, at first in almost horizontal lines around the neck, then tooled into a festoon pattern from the shoulder to the point where the body turns inward toward the bottom, where the thread is again wound spirally in horizontal lines to the center of 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. 167, p. 169, repr. (col.) p. 107.
Hayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, p. 14.
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
3rd through 2nd century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
3rd century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
3rd century BCE
New Kingdom, late 18th or 19th Dynasty, about 1400-1225 BCE
Mid-4th to early 3rd century BCE
2nd-1st century BCE
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