Dove Unguentarium(s?)

A popular luxury item of the ancient Mediterranean world was the unguentarium–a little glass container which contained perfume, salve, balm, or suchlike precious unguents (the purpose is right there in the name, people).   Today we would probably keep such cosmetics or medicines in a hermetically sealed plastic containers vacuum sealed by machines with metal or foil tops, but the Romans did not have such materials or technology. In order to keep their basalms fresh, they used the glassblower’s art.  The jalop was put in the container during manufacture and the glassmaker sealed it in.

In order to use such a material, the buyer would snap the glass and break the seal (and alas, the vessel).  Dove-shaped unguentariums (or whatever the English plural of that word is) were particularly popular because the shape was beautiful and effective. A user could break the beak for getting small amounts or snap off the tail if she wanted to use all of her lotion at once.  Additionally, doves were sacred to Venus–a particular favorite goddess of the Romans.  I wonder what sort of lubricious lotions and potions were in these lovely glass doves.  In some cases we could perhaps find out.  Some of these were never broken by the people they were made for, now dead for more than a thousand years.  We could break them and find out what the contents were with our machines…but after so long it seems like an unimaginable shame.

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