Object Description
An exceptionally fine and rare Sidonian glass flask, mould-blown in opaque white colour. The vessel sits on a flat foot and is made in a tripartite mould, with a free blown cylindrical neck featuring an outward folded rim. Its hexagonal body features six rectangular columnar niches, surmounted with triangular pediments and each centred by a depiction of a bird or a butterfly. A raised egg-and-dart border below and an additional band decorated with raised grooves over the short foot. Bottles of this type, known as the Bird Series, might have been made as souvenirs or evocations of the Phoenician city of Ornithopolis, which translates to “City of Birds” and that was located between Sidon and Tyre on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, modern-day Lebanon.
Date: Circa 1st Century AD