Sometimes one find opens a gateway to a whole new obsession; I'm now wondering what could be more beautiful than ancient Roman glass? It delivers the feeling of the miraculous, too, both formally and in that it managed to endure two thousand years or so to arrive in the present...all this to say, I hope this will not be the last piece of ancient Roman glass I find!

From what I've learned, small bottles like this--unguentarium--were used for oils, perfumes, etc., though some scholars view them as lacrimarium (tear vials--such a wonderful image) that were to be buried with the deceased. This one, complete and intact, is a very pale blue-green, with deeper color at the slightly flattened base, and patches of iridescence and encrustation. I believe this dates to about the late 1st/early second century A.D. (based on what the seller told me, and affirmed, from what I have learned, by the form, color, and style of the lip and bottom). It is just luminous, beautifully irregular, and to my eye just about a perfect thing.

4 1/4" t x 1 5/8" widest. It stands up on its own. Excellent condition, with one small imperfection in the glass running down from the lip--this appears to me to  indigenous to it, not a crack or repair.