Egyptian alabastron

This vitreous paste alabastron is a small ointment or bottle that was used to contain perfumes. These ointments were inspired by the shape of the Greek vases, and retain the name of this culture: alabastron, aríbalo or anforisco. Alexandria was the largest production center in the whole Mediterranean for this type of glass paste pieces from the 3rd century BC. This piece chronology goes from the 3rd to 1st centuries BC. 
 
The decoration of this ointment is feathers in the central part of the body and a drawing of horizontal festoons on the lower half. The colors used and those that are most repeated in this type of container are opaque greenish blue and yellow. 
 
It is modeled on a sand core. This technique consisted of modeling a wet clay core with the chosen shape, wrapped in a piece of cloth and attached at one end to a rod, with the help of the rod it was submerged in a melted glass crucible and allowed to dry . When the material hardened, the surface was polished, heated and spun on a flat, stone or metal slab. The clay core was then removed from the interior and the mouth and handles were modeled and applied with the help of tweezers. Finally, the piece was decorated with the wrapping technique, which consisted of adding thin strips of glass of another color fused around the piece at a lower temperature, and manipulated with a kind of punch. Thus, they created different designs in the shape of spirals, feathers or zigzag rings, among others.
 
Necropolis of Les Casetes, Creueta sector
Ibero-Roman period (from Egypt, Ptolemaic period, 3rd-1st century BC)
Height: 130 mm; diam. base: 14 mm; diam. mouth: 29 mm;
Nº inv. Vilamuseu 003372