Miniature Amphora
Eastern Mediterranean, archaic Greek, 520 – 480 BC.
White opaque glass with violet zig-zag thread trails
Sandcore technique
H 11,2 cm
Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig Basel, BS 636
Colourful glass flasks of this kind are often found as grave goods in the graves of women, but sometimes also of men. In general, intact glass finds can be assumed to have originated in graves, where they were largely protected from damage. Depending on their wealth, the deceased were given more or fewer things to take with them into the afterlife. Certain objects give an indication of the sex of the deceased, for example women were often given perfume bottles, jewellery or mirrors, but also objects pointing to female occupations, such as spindles.
Unfortunately, often only the most valuable grave goods from illegal excavations end up in the art market, usually without indication of origin. By tearing apart the assemblage of finds from a site, important information for dating the graves, but also about the social position of the deceased and their access to imported goods is lost to scholarship.
Like exhibit Aryballos, this piece was core-formed. The sandcore technique was known since the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. First, a core of clay, sand and organic material is formed around a metal rod; then molten glass is tightly wound or gathered around the core to create the shape of the vessel. In one or more further steps, fine glass threads of different colours are trailed over the base layer. These threads were often drawn or dragged with a pointed object on the re-melted surface, to create feather, arcade or zigzag patterns. Due to the rapid solidification of the molten glass, the sandcasting technique requires very fast work; therefore, the object must be regularly lightly melted during the manufacturing process. Finally, metal rod and core material are removed from the finished vial after cooling. Workshops for Mediterranean core-formed vessels were located on Rhodes, Cyprus, and on the coasts of Asia Minor and Syro-Palestinia. This miniature amphora may have been produced on Rhodes.
White opaque glass is rare for core-formed vessels. It is created by adding antimony oxide or arsenic to the molten glass mass. The white opaque glass might be an attempt to imitate alabaster, a material that was also popular for perfume flasks. White glass is especially viscous and is more difficult to work than other coloured glass, which explains the surface irregularities of this piece.