Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, probably from Rhodes, Greece
Date5th century BCE
DimensionsH: 5 1/4 in. (13.4 cm); Diam: 1 5/16 in. (3.4 cm); Max Diam of Body: 1 in. (2.5 cm)
MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk and handles; applied marvered and unmarvered threads.
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number
1923.351
Not on View
DescriptionThis core-formed alabastron has an opaque red-brown ground decorated with opaque turquoise-blue threads. The broad, slightly outward-sloping rim-disk leads into a cylindrical neck and a pronounced round-angled shoulder. The straight-sided cylindrical body ends in a convex base. Two long, vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, made of opaque red-brown glass, are attached below the shoulder.
An unmarvered turquoise-blue thread is applied at the rim-disk’s edge. A second turquoise-blue thread, marvered, begins at the shoulder and spirals downward in close-set horizontal lines. It is then tooled into an inverted festoon pattern around the handle area, followed by a close-set zigzag design from above mid-body to the base. The thread finishes in a horizontal spiral 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. 81, p. 138-139.Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
Mid-4th through early third centuries BCE
3rd through 2nd century BCE
New Kingdom, Eighteenth Dynasty, about 1412-1350 BCE
Mid-4th to early 3rd century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Late sixth through fifth centuries BCE
2nd-1st century BCE
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