Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 156

Opaque white, with handles in same color; trails in translucent purple.
Broad, inward-sloping rim-disk with radiating tool marks on upper surface and projecting uneven lip to mouth; cylindrical neck tapering upward; broad, sloping shoulder; elongated ovoid body tapering to a point; two vertical strap handles applied over trails, drawn up from top of shoulder, turned in, and pressed on to underside of rim-disk and top of neck.
One trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another trail wound round in a spiral on shoulder; a third applied as a thick band around shoulder, at first wound round top of body in horizontal lines, then tooled into a zigzag pattern; finally a fourth, thinner trail applied to body, also tooled into a zigzag pattern and ending in an uneven spiral around bottom; long vertical tooling indents in alternating upward and downward strokes, forming prominent rounded ribs around body.
Complete, except for knob-base; dulling, pitting, faint iridescence, and small patches of enrustation.

These glass vessels with opaque white bodies and purple threads have been found throughout the Greek world, but most examples are from cemeteries and sanctuaries in the eastern Mediterranean.

Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle), Glass, Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

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