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Flask, reverse (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Flask, front with cross and hares. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
Flask
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 221
- Date
- Late 5th to 6th c, Late Roman
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 4117
- Museum Inventory No.
- 4117
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- P68.165
- Material
- Ceramic
- Object Type
- Pottery
- Pottery Shape
- Flask
- Pottery Ware
- Late Roman Tableware
- Pottery Attribution
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- BS
- Trench
- BS 68
- Locus
- BS Locus BS-E 5 (Area of)
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E37 - E37.50 / S1.71 *96.63
- Description
- Large lentoid flask. Two handles from shoulder to neck. Mold made in two pieces; wheel-made neck and handles added separately. Decoration in relief on two sides. Side A: cross within circle, with two hares below, one resting forelegs on cross, the other on the enclosing circle, reaching up to eat branches. Side B: two facing geese eating grapes, framed with zig-zags. Preserved height 0.24 m, diameter of body 0.187 m, thickness of flask (back to front) 0.095 m.
- Comments
- From Byzantine Shop E5 (cf. No. 220). This same shop contained the bronze lamp in the form of a lion, No. 223. Like the plate No. 220 and incense shovel No. 222, the cross on the flask emphasizes its association with Christian practice. This is an unusually large version of a well-known type of small flask or ampulla that was carried by pilgrims and other travelers in Late Antiquity. Written sources mention the protective power of their contents — sanctified earth, oil, or water—as well as the images impressed on their sides.
- See Also
- Greenewalt, “Introduction”; Byzantine Shops.
- Bibliography
- Hanfmann et al. 1970, 44, fig. 37; Hanfmann 1983, 165ff, fig. 244; Crawford 1990, 59, fig. 255-257.
- Author
- NDC, MLR