A Roman black glass rod-formed small globular vessel with two handles. The body is decorated with lightly indented vertical grooves around the shoulders and has a rounded base.
 
Circa 4th century AD.
 
Condition: Complete and intact with patches of light accretions inside and out.
Height 5.6 cms (2.2 ins).
 
Provenance: Ex P.C. UK collection 1990-2010.
 
Cf. glasses of antiquity. Oppenländer Collection (1974) no. 753; Y. Israeli, Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum (2003) p. 294 cat. 393.
Also: Item 959; Roman Glass in Corning Museum of Glass, volume three; David Whitehouse.
 
Artisans used a mass of mud and straw fixed around a metal rod to form a core and built up a vessel by either dipping the core in liquified glass, or by trailing liquid glass over the core. The core was removed after the glass had cooled, and handles, rims and bases were then added. These vessels are characterised by relatively thick walls and were limited in size to small unguent or scent containers. This early technique continued despite the introduction of cast vessels, although their production seems to have been limited to a very few factories.
 
TimesAncient blog post: Roman glass