Roman Glass Perfume Unguent Bottle 100AD Genuine Ancient Provincial Antiochia

Description: Genuine Ancient Roman Iridescent Green Glass Perfume Bottle/Unguentarium – Ancient repairs. CLASSIFICATION: Ancient Roman Glass Unguentarium. ATTRIBUTION: Antiochia, Eastern Provincial Roman Empire (Syria), 2nd Century A.D. SIZE/MEASUREMENTS: Height: 81 millimeters (3 1/4 inches). Bowl Diameter: 17 millimeters (2/3 inch). Top Lip Diameter: 24 millimeters (1 inch). Base Diameter: 12 millimeters (1/2 inch). Weight: 5.70 grams. CONDITION: Very good though bears evidence of a very neat, professional repair. Minor scratches and scuffs consistent with use and then burial in soil. DETAIL: This is a very handsome, complete second century A.D. Roman glass perfume bottle (or “unguentarium”) which possesses a light iridescent burial patina with purple, pink, blue and green highlights. Most Roman glass vessels recovered complete (intact or repairable) are between 1½ and 3 inches in size – this one obviously exceeds the high end of this scale. However though complete, in a sense it is not intact. The glass perfume bottle was broken, whether in ancient times or perhaps when it was excavated, as there is a fairly clean break toward the bottom. The repair however seems to have been made with bitumen (tar), which would indicate that the repair was ancient. Some of the bitumen has been lost, so there is a small hole in the side of the bottle. But it appears to have been repaired and reused in ancient Rome – a rather uncommon find. Small jars, pitchers, unguentariums, jugs, bottles, jars and flasks like this were used to contain aromatic oils, perfumes, medicinal ointments, and cosmetics. It is not to say that the Romans did not use larger pieces of glass on their tables such as bowls and cups; and even larger containers for transporting foodstuffs; because they did. In fact whatever the Romans had produced in clay in the first and second centuries B.C. was by the first and second centuries A.D. more commonly produced in glass. However the larger pieces of glass are rarely found intact. The Romans for instance produced fluted, engraved, multi-tiered, and cut glass bowls of fantastic quality and design – and only a few intact specimens have ever been recovered intact. In fact even the smaller pieces such as this are rarely recovered intact except as grave goods. This piece as you can see has a pronounced lip, a long slender neck, and an ample bowl. It is certainly less common than the more often found colorless glass bottles and jars, and was probably used for a precious aromatic oil or perfume. The bottle possesses some nice highlights of purple, pink and green iridescence, as well as some soil deposits both inside and outside the jar. It was of course carefully cleaned, but some of the soil adhesions are pretty stubborn. They could be cleaned off by someone very patient and persistent, but as it is, the bottle is very beautiful. It’s a truly remarkable and authentic ancient glass vessel from the Roman Province of Syria. If you wish to display it, it would look very nice in a shadow box or plaque. If you so desire we can provide a framed plaque and mount the artifact for you (so that it could be removed without damage at a later date) – or we could also mount it into a glass-fronted shadow box. If you did choose to have the bottle mounted on a plaque or shadow box, you would be quite pleased by the outcome. You can see a small version of such a framed display plaque (see it here). It would make a wonderfully handsome and historically significant gift. The plaque narrates a brief outline of the history of the Roman Empire, along with a very nice image of ruins dating from the Roman Empire, and a map of the Roman Empire at its apex. It would make a great gift, for yourself or a friend, and would surely delight a son or daughter. It would not only make a very handsome display, but would be very educational as well. Whether simply displayed as it is, or mounted into a shadow box or plaque, this is a wonderfully significant artifact of that magnificent empire which spanned Europe from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. It is sure to make someone very pleased. ROMAN HISTORY: One of the greatest civilizations of recorded history was the ancient Roman Empire. In exchange for a very modest amount of contemporary currency, you can possess a small part of that great civilization in the form of a 2,000 year old ancient Roman artifact. The Roman civilization, in relative terms the greatest military power in the history of the world, was founded in the 8th century (B.C.). In the 4th Century (B.C.) the Romans were the dominant power on the Italian Peninsula, having defeated the Etruscans and Celts. In the 3rd Century (B.C.) the Romans conquered Sicily, and in the following century defeated Carthage, and controlled the Greece. Throughout the remainder of the 2nd Century (B.C.) the Roman Empire continued its gradual conquest of the Hellenistic (Greek Colonial) World by conquering Syria and Macedonia; and finally came to control Egypt in the 1st Century (B.C.) The pinnacle of Roman power was achieved in the 1st Century (A.D.) as Rome conquered much of Britain and Western Europe. At its peak, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain in the West, throughout most of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, and into Asia Minor. For a brief time, the era of “Pax Romana”, a time of peace and consolidation reigned. Civilian emperors were the rule, and the culture flourished with a great deal of liberty enjoyed by the average Roman Citizen. However within 200 years the Roman Empire was in a state of steady decay, attacked by Germans, Goths, and Persians. The decline was temporarily halted by third century Emperor Diocletian. In the 4th Century (A.D.) the Roman Empire was split between East and West. The Great Emperor Constantine again managed to temporarily arrest the decay of the Empire, but within a hundred years after his death the Persians captured Mesopotamia, Vandals infiltrated Gaul and Spain, and the Goths even sacked Rome itself. Most historians date the end of the Western Roman Empire to 476 (A.D.) when Emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed. However the Eastern Roman Empire (The Byzantine Empire) survived until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D. In the ancient world valuables such as coins and jewelry were commonly buried for safekeeping, and inevitably the owners would succumb to one of the many perils of the ancient world. Oftentimes the survivors of these individuals did not know where the valuables had been buried, and today, thousands of years later caches of coins and rings are still commonly uncovered throughout Europe and Asia Minor. Throughout history these treasures have been inadvertently discovered by farmers in their fields, uncovered by erosion, and the target of unsystematic searches by treasure seekers. With the introduction of metal detectors and other modern technologies to Eastern Europe in the past three or four decades, an amazing number of new finds are seeing the light of day thousands of years after they were originally hidden by their past owners. And with the liberalization of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, new markets have opened eager to share in these ancient treasures. HISTORY OF ROMAN SYRIA: Antioch was the capitol city of the Roman Province of Syria. Antioch stands at the focal point for communications with Palestine to the south and with the Euphrates to the east. A road led southwest through the suburb of Daphne to the Seleucid seaport of Laodicea, and another road to Antioch's own harbor town, Seleuceia. The ancient city extended along both sides of the Orontes River, which was crossed by five bridges (of which one of Roman origin still remains). Daphne was the celebrated sanctuary of Apollo. The road between Antioch and Daphne - a distance of five miles - was bordered by parks, fountains, villas and splendid structures appropriate to the gay procession that thronged from the city gate to the scene of consecrated pleasure. Daphne itself was a pleasure garden. Pompey added Antioch to the Roman Empire in 64 BC. The city still flourished after annexation to the Roman Empire, and was one of the two largest cities in the East, the other being Alexandria. Its continued prosperity was due to its position as an administrative center and its excellent trade routes to the hinterland and overseas. Antioch, the famous "Queen of the East", with its population of more than half a million, its beautiful site, its trade and culture, and its important military position, was a rival of Alexandria (Egypt). The two cities vied for position as the most significant city in the empire after Rome itself. The Greco-Macedorian colonies which comprised Syria had been in the past organized as self-governing city-states. Required to pay taxes and obey royal ordinances but allowed to administer their internal affairs. These semi-independent satrapies were begun by the Persian Empire, retained by Seleucid, and essentially the system used by the Romans. When Pompey established the Roman province of Syria in 64 B.C., Antioch was included within it as a nominally free city, and as such it continued until the time of Antoninus Pius (138-161 A.D.). The early emperors raised some large and important structures, such as aqueducts, amphitheaters and baths. Antioch seems to have had almost a monopoly in the valuable trade from the tusks of the elephants that existed in the region at the time. It long enjoyed the right of coinage even during the Republican period when it was the only city in the entire empire (other than Rome itself) which was permitted to strike coinage with the inscription “SC”, which was the abbreviation for Senatus Consultus (with the permission of the Senate). The Roman emperors Caligula, Trajan, and Hadrian built aqueducts to supply Antioch with excellent water. Under Diocletian an Imperial armament factory was established at Antioch. Under Roman rule, Alexandria and Antioch, with their unruly, pleasure-seeking and highly industrious populations were great eastern capitals. Their busy trade brought strange peoples and cargoes from as far away as India and China, and at the same time, as centers of learning, they continued to attract intellectual leaders. The population of Antioch was an agglomeration of peoples and races, and the city was divided into sections, or quarters. There were Greeks, Macedonians, Jews, and Syrians, with occasional Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Persians. Proud, turbulent and satirical, the Antiochians were noted for their mastery of the art of ridicule, coupled with an inability to hold their tongue. Having enjoyed autonomy for most of their history, they chafed under Roman rule. They insulted each Roman Emperor, General, or Governor, sent their way. They also suffered the wrath of the insulted party. Hadrian withdrew the right of coinage; Marcus Aurelius the right of assembly; Septimius Severus transferred the primacy (capitol city) of Syria to away from Antioch to Laodicea, where it temporarily remained. Emperors bestowed titles and rights upon a city as a reward for good behavior; they withdrew these privileges as a punishment for disloyalty. Though diminished by repeated severe earthquakes and several sacks by the Persians, Antioch remained a significant city well in the timeframe of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. GLASS HISTORY: Naturally occurring glass, especially the volcanic glass obsidian, has been used since the Stone Age in many localities across the globe for the production of sharp cutting tools and, due to its limited source areas, was extensively traded. With respect to man-made glass, the ancient Romans were the first to mass produce glass articles, and this included glass jewelry and gemstones. In the ancient world, glass jewelry was very costly, not only for the ancient Romans, but particular so going back another 3,000 years further to ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Sumeria. Though glass jewelry, especially gemstones and beads, have been fashioned for perhaps 5,000 years, very little is known about the production of glass in the ancient world. Perhaps about 4,000 B.C. the ancient Egyptians started fashioning amulets, beads, and small vessels out of a material known as “faience”, an ancient precursor of glass created by crushing quartz sand and mixing it with an alkali binder and mineral oxides to provide color. The discovery of the techniques for producing glass was probably the accidental byproduct of the ancient production of faience. Ancient lumps of glass have been discovered in the area of ancient Mesopotamia, as well as ancient Syria and Egypt, dating as far back as 4,000 B.C. Written records from ancient Mesopotamia refer to the manufacture of glass, describing the manufacturing process as difficult and a closely-guarded secret. Initially ancient glass vessels were produced in with the use of molds of forms. Some of the earliest surviving examples were from the 15th century B.C. tombs of the wives of ancient Egypt’s Pharaoh Thutmose III. Glass beads dating to about 1,800 B.C. were produced by the Indus Valley Civilization. Around 1,500 B.C. two new production techniques gave rise to more frequent manufacture of glass in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece. Both techniques involved the use of molten glass rods, either wrapped around a mud core, or placed within a mold. However the end product was still nonetheless frightfully expensive and the process both lengthy and labor-intensive. The disasters that overtook Late Bronze Age civilizations seem to have brought glass-making to a halt. It picked up again in its former sites, as well as in Syria and Cyprus, in the 9th century B.C., when the techniques for making colorless glass were discovered. The first glassmaking "manual" dates back to about 650 B.C., in cuneiform tablets discovered in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. In Egypt glass-making did not revive until it was reintroduced in third century B.C. Ptolemaic Alexandria. During the Greek Hellenistic (colonizing) period many new techniques of glass production were introduced and glass began to be used to make larger pieces, notably table wares. The term “glass” originated in the late Roman Empire in the Roman glassmaking center at Trier, now in modern Germany. The Romans utilized glass in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles, window glass, jewelry, beads and gemstones were also produced. Roman glass production developed from Hellenistic technical traditions, initially concentrating on the production of intensely colored cast glass vessels. However, during the 1st century AD the industry underwent rapid technical growth that saw the introduction of glass blowing techniques (introduced a century earlier in Palestine and Syria), wherein a blob of molten glass was inflated either free form or into a mold by blowing through a hollow metal blowpipe. Glass blowing became widespread during the later Roman Empire, and with it the dominance of colorless or “aqua” colored glass, and the inexpensive process created huge demand for glass products, including jewelry. Syria became the "glass factory" of the Roman Empire and glassware came to be widely disseminated throughout the Roman Empire (if you would like to learn more about ancient Roman/Syrian glass, there are two wonderful websites to start you on your voyage here and here). Roman glass ware which had already been traded as far as China and Western Asia (Roman glass has been found in first century B.C. tombs in China as well as what was Parthian Persia) now came to be exported throughout the known world in vast quantity. Glassblowing allowed glass workers to produce vessels with considerably thinner walls, decreasing the amount of glass needed for each vessel. Glass blowing was also considerably quicker than other techniques, and vessels required considerably less finishing, representing a further saving in time, raw material and equipment. Although earlier techniques dominated during the early first century A.D., by the middle to late first century earlier production techniques had been largely abandoned in favor of blowing. Glass making reached its peak at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D., with glass objects in domestic contexts of every kind. An eight ton glass slab uncovered by archaeologists indicates that glass was being produced in very large batches contained in tanks situated inside highly specialized furnaces. Glass was seemingly manufactured on a large scale by a limited number of workshops, and then broken into chunks for distribution to a multitude of local producers of end products. Otherwise there is only limited evidence for small-scale local glass manufacture, and only in context of window glass. The first-century A.D. Roman Naturalist and Historian “Pliny the Elder” documented the furnace-production of molten glass and the development of related production technologies. The Roman writers Statius and Martial both indicate that recycling broken glass was an important part of the glass industry, and that quantities of broken glassware were concentrated at local sites prior to melting back into raw glass. This is supported by the fact that only rarely are glass fragments of any size recovered by archaeologists from domestic sites of this period. With respect to glass jewelry, it is well known that the Romans and their successors in the East, the Byzantines (and Eastern Europe in general), were very fond of elaborate jewelry and other personal adornments. Typical jewelry included bracelets worn both on the forearm as well as upper arm, rings, earrings, and pendants, and in the classical world, glass jewelry was just as costly its counterparts made in gold and/or gemstones. Though introduced in first century A.D. Alexandria, the use of glass windows gained widespread popularity in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. throughout Europe, mostly in conjunction with churches and royal structures. In the 8th century A.D. glass was described in Arab poetry, and in another 8th century book a Persian chemist recorded 46 recipes for colored glass (a later edition of the book included 12 additional recipes). By the 11th century clear glass mirrors were being produced in Islamic Spain. In Germany the 11th century saw the introduction of a technique which mass-produced thin sheet glass, and in the 12th century the use of stained glass rapidly became an important medium in Romanesque and Gothic art. However the mass-production of glass during the era of the Roman Empire was not matched by the modern world until the advent of the industrial revolution. Glass remained expensive through the 17th century, and glass gemstones though less expensive than natural gemstones, were still expensive. The “gemstones” in the least expensive “costume” jewelry were generally made from colored amber. Excepting of course genuine precious and semi-precious gemstones, glass “gemstones” were still the domain of relatively more costly pieces. SHIPPING & RETURNS/REFUNDS: Due to its fragile nature this particular piece is only shipped in an oversized box with lots of Styrofoam peanuts. Additional items shipped together do result in a discount. We can add most other items we offer to the shipment for only $0.99 each. Your purchase will ordinarily be shipped within 48 hours of payment. We package as well as anyone in the business, with lots of protective padding and containers. All of our shipments are fully insured against loss, and our shipping rates include the cost of this coverage (through stamps.com, Shipsaver.com, the USPS, UPS, or Fed-Ex). International tracking is provided free by the USPS for certain countries, other countries are at additional cost. We do offer U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, Registered Mail, and Express Mail for both international and domestic shipments, as well United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (Fed-Ex). Please ask for a rate quotation. Please note for international purchasers we will do everything we can to minimize your liability for VAT and/or duties. But we cannot assume any responsibility or liability for whatever taxes or duties may be levied on your purchase by the country of your residence. If you don’t like the tax and duty schemes your government imposes, please complain to them. We have no ability to influence or moderate your country’s tax/duty schemes. ABOUT US: If upon receipt of the item you are disappointed for any reason whatever, I offer a no questions asked 30-day return policy. Send it back, I will give you a complete refund of the purchase price; 1) less our original shipping/insurance costs, 2) less any non-refundable fees imposed by eBay. Please note that eBay may not refund payment processing fees on returns beyond a 30-day purchase window. So except for shipping costs, we will refund all proceeds from the sale of a return item, eBay may not always follow suit. Obviously we have no ability to influence, modify or waive eBay policies. ABOUT US: Prior to our retirement we used to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Asia several times a year seeking antique gemstones and jewelry from the globe’s most prolific gemstone producing and cutting centers. Most of the items we offer came from acquisitions we made in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) during these years from various institutions and dealers. Much of what we generate on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay goes to support worthy institutions in Europe and Asia connected with Anthropology and Archaeology. Though we have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, our primary interests are ancient/antique jewelry and gemstones, a reflection of our academic backgrounds. Though perhaps difficult to find in the USA, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia antique gemstones are commonly dismounted from old, broken settings – the gold reused – the gemstones recut and reset. Before these gorgeous antique gemstones are recut, we try to acquire the best of them in their original, antique, hand-finished state – most of them originally crafted a century or more ago. We believe that the work created by these long-gone master artisans is worth protecting and preserving rather than destroying this heritage of antique gemstones by recutting the original work out of existence. That by preserving their work, in a sense, we are preserving their lives and the legacy they left for modern times. Far better to appreciate their craft than to destroy it with modern cutting. Not everyone agrees – fully 95% or more of the antique gemstones which come into these marketplaces are recut, and the heritage of the past lost. But if you agree with us that the past is worth protecting, and that past lives and the produce of those lives still matters today, consider buying an antique, hand cut, natural gemstone rather than one of the mass-produced machine cut (often synthetic or “lab produced”) gemstones which dominate the market today. We can set most any antique gemstone you purchase from us in your choice of styles and metals ranging from rings to pendants to earrings and bracelets; in sterling silver, 14kt solid gold, and 14kt gold fill. When you purchase from us, you can count on quick shipping and careful, secure packaging. We would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from us. There is a $3 fee for mailing under separate cover. I will always respond to every inquiry whether via email or eBay message, so please feel free to write.

Price: 349.99 USD

Location: Lummi Island, Washington

End Time: 2024-03-22T04:23:09.000Z

Shipping Cost: 20.49 USD