Roman Glass Oil Flask Aryballos

Description

Ancient Roman Glass Oil Flask (Ampulla or Aryballos)

1st century A.D.

19Cm

Translucent deep blue green, with small bubbles. Blown; handles applied.

Flask: globular. Rim folded out, up, in, and down to form thick flange, with rounded edge; short cylindrical neck; base rounded. Two opposed handles applied to shoulder, drawn up and in to top of neck, then pulled down neck and onto bottom of trail, which was tooled.

Attached to each handle, “bronze” ring made by bending length of wire into circle held in place by twisting the overlapping ends. Rings receive cast “bronze” handle in form of inverted U, with molded terminals that are bent back along sides of U.

Flasks of this type are often known by their Greek name, aryballos; their Latin name, however, is ampulla (Hilgers 1969, pp. 37–38, 102–104).

Globular ampullae were used for carrying oil when one visited the baths. They have a long history, and the first known (core-formed) glass examples date from between the late sixth and early fourth centuries B.C.
Blown glass ampullae became popular in the Flavian period .

Restored but in god condition