Alabastron

Glassware

Museum of Antiquities - University of Saskatchewan

Front

Alabastron 2019-08-14

Name/Title

Alabastron

Entry/Object ID

11NE-Mi48-185

Description

The rim is unmarvered and sloping obliquely to the narrow mouth. The rim is blue with a ring of white threaded glass at its center. The short cylindrical neck is threaded with white glass. The shoulders extend obliquely downwards where two knobbed handles sit, each upper-looped portion of the handles is missing. Decorated from the shoulder to the handles are six concentric white ribbed rings. The middle of the body is decorated with three concentric white threads, flanked by two larger yellow threads combed into a zig-zag pattern. The lower body is decorated, repeating the pattern of concentric white ribbed rings. The base is round. The vessel is intact, the lip may be a replacement; overall wear and encrustation may hide damage to the body.

Use

Unguent Bottle

Context

In the ancient Mediterranean, these vessels held scented oils, typically olive-oil based, rather than the Roman alcohol-based perfumes. The vessel is named 'Alabastron' because they were originally made of alabaster before glassmakers adapted the shape to the glass industry. Created by core-forming, this technique was first developed in the Near East but in the sixth century BCE, the industry moved west into to the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean vessels are classified into three successive groups, Group I, II, and III; this vessel falls under Group I. Vessels from Group I are disproportionately found in Rhodes, Greece and due to indirect archaeological evidence it was theorized that this technique was brought to the Mediterranean by Mesopotamian craftsmen who emigrated westwards in the seventh century BCE or was adopted by locals of Rhodes. However, recent geochemical analyses of silica raw materials in Rhodian sand and that of the Group I vessels, may indicate that Rhodes was not the primary place of manufacture. Instead, the analyses propose the Levant as the place of primary manufacture - where raw materials were melted to produce raw glass chunks then transported to secondary production centers - with secondary workshops possibly being located in Rhodes where raw glass chunks were re-melted, coloured, and ultimately shaped into vessels (Blomme et al. 2016, 2).

Made/Created

Date made

600 BCE - 400 BCE

Time Period

Archaic

Ethnography

Cultural Region

Area

Eastern Mediterranean

Dimensions

Dimension Description

Overall

Height

11.5 cm

Diameter

3.7 cm

Material

Glass

Research Notes

Research Type

Reference

Notes

Hayes, John W. Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto: The Royal Ontario Museum, 1975. Note Page 8, Cat.1; Page 9, Cat.6.

Research Type

Reference

Notes

Grose, David Frederick. The Toledo Museum of Art 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 Hill Press, 1989. Note Page 138, Cat. 79.

Research Type

Reference

Notes

"Alabastron (Container for Scented Oil)." Art Institute Chicago. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/67491/alabastron-container-for-scented-oil.

Research Type

Reference

Notes

Blomme, Annelore, Jan Elsen, Dieter Brems, Andrew Shortland, Elissavet Dotika, and Patrick Degryse. "Tracing the Primary Production Location of Core-Formed Glass Vessels, Mediterranean Group I." The Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 5 (2016): 1-9. Note Page 2.