1971.06

Balsamarium

Purchased. Ht (lip) 12.4cm; diam. (lip) 3.6cm.

Intact and in good condition. Pale green glass with trailed decoration in a darker blue-green. The decoration was added before the handles. On the lower wall is a zigzag with a spiral line above. Heavy disc foot with a depression in the centre.

Of Syrian manufacture. The shape has a precise parallel in P. La Baume, Glas der antiken Welt i, no. D 79 pl. 34, 4, dated third to fourth century AD and with further parallels. Another piece with much the same handles and the same decoration is A. von Saldern et al., Gläser der Antike no. 719, dated fourth to fifth century AD. There is another excellent parallel in the Newark Museum that has been dated to the late third or the fourth century: S.H. Auth, Ancient Glass at the Newark Museum (Newark 1976) 143 no. 182.

The shape is sometimes called a ‘kohl-tube’.

Folio Fine Art Ltd (London), Roman Glass (May 1971) no. 5 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 114.