Roman, second half of the 1^st century A.D.

Cobalt-blue glass

H: 8.5 cm (3.3 in) – D: 5.0 cm (1.9 in)

Serial: 2019

Provenance: Ex- private collection, acquired in 1993

Glass making technique in antiquity originated in the second millennium B. C. in Egypt and Mesopotamia and progressed from core-molding to mold-pressing and glass-cutting, subsequently to free-blowing and mold-blowing. With a versatility like no other known material in Roman times, abundant availability, lightness and ease of use, glass enabled the imitation of a wide range of other materials (especially precious metals or stones), whether in the form, the design or the color. Furthermore, the ancients certainly knew that glass is a chemically neutral substance, what makes it particularly suitable for the storage of food, but also of cosmetics or pharmaceutical products.

The replacement of terracotta by glass as a raw material for the manufacture of all types of containers is to be regarded as a major technological revolution in the Classical world: this shift, which occurred gradually between the late Hellenistic period and the first centuries of the Imperial times, was facilitated by the invention - probably in the Levantine - and widespread use of the blowpipe and of furnaces able to resist the temperatures needed for the melting of sands (transparent glass).

The present vessel of intense cobalt-blue color, probably a container for a perfumed oil, was blown into a two-part mold of two vertical sections; a continuous mold seam is visible around the body and base, it extends onto either side of neck. The rim is folded outward, upward, and inward over the cylindrical neck. The spherical body on a circular flat base received vertical ribs which are wider at middle and tapering toward ends; the vessel is qualified as “melon-shaped”. One bifurcated handle was appliedto shoulder and attached to rim with projecting thumbrest above.