unguentaria roman glass perfume bottles

Well knock me down with a feather, l'd never heard of these perfume bottles before, but now l have, you can colour me impressed. These small glass wonders are unguentaria, the perfume bottles of the Roman Empire made around the year 50-100 AD. What makes them unique is not only their elegant dove shape but a mechanism so radical that it turns them into single-use objects: to access the aromatic oil or balm they contained, one had to break the neck of the bird or its tail, depending on the amount one wanted to extract. The container was destroyed to reveal its treasure. More here.

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