alabastron
- Museum number
- 1952,0204.81
- Description
-
Core-formed glass alabastron.
Opaque orange and opaque light blue trails, translucent dark blue body and handles.
Broad horizontal rim-disc, tool-marks on upper and under surfaces; short, cylindrical neck; round-angled shoulder; straight sided body with upper taper; rounded bottom. Below shoulder, two vertical ring-handles with knobbed tails.One handle higher than the other on body.
Unmarvered orange trail at edge of lip; another, marvered, dropped on at top of neck and wound spirally round vessel, at first in straight lines, then, at middle of body, in zigzags, where a light blue trail begins, mingling with it. Below, two independent marvered horizontal trails, the upper orange, the lower light blue.
Core-formed; rim-disc and handles trailed on and tooled, the handles formed by drawing upward from a drop-on at bottom and folding inward over a tool to make the ring.
- Production date
- 475BC-450BC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 2.80 centimetres (body)
-
Diameter: 2.70 centimetres (rim)
-
Height: 10.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Attributed to Fikellura grave 189, based on evidence from Biliotti's marking on the object (grave number on label), Biliotti's Kamiros diary, British Museum register, departmental Kamiros index card. Description in Biliotti's Kamiros diary: Glass phiale – blue yellow, green and white (1 fragment).
Attributions to find-spots are based on (1) Alfred Biliotti’s diary kept during excavations at Kamiros between November 1863 and June 1864, which records the contents of two votive deposits and over 300 graves; (2) entries in the Museum Register, often stipulating the find-spots of individual objects excavated by Biliotti; (3) the Kamiros tomb list, produced around the same time as his entries in the Museum Register. It lists the contents of each grave and votive deposit, along with their corresponding registration numbers; (4) the Kamiros index cards, written by Donald Bailey in the 1960’s. These mainly record the contents of graves from the Fikellura cemetery and are organised according to tomb group. All archives are kept in the Department of Greece and Rome. In addition, Reynold Higgins’ Catalogue of the Terracottas in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1954) has been checked for attributions to the Fikellura cemetery.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Intact. Some lime-encrustation. Creamy weathering, mostly flaked off, leaving a dulled, pitted surface with a creamy film which almost totally obscures the light blue trails.
- Acquisition date
- 1864
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1952,0204.81
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: DBH.0038 (Harden number)
