Unguentary

Reproduction of a glass ointment or balsam jar. It is a tubular container, with a rounded convex bottom and an elongated body that gradually narrows towards the mouth, to which it joins without interruption, without a neck. The mouth is narrow, slightly extended and with a rounded and horizontally flattened lip. Greenish tone.

This piece can be classified by its functionality within section II.1.1. proposed by Ortíz (2001) for glass containers containing personal hygiene or medicinal substances that are less than 10 centimeters in height. These perfume bottles, whose elongated and narrow shape facilitates the gradual and controlled dosage of the content, were closed with a lid to prevent spillage and perpetuate the aromas. With some frequency, and due to the characteristics of their rounded bottom, these pieces retain an independent metal thread that, surrounding the lower part of the mouth or neck, descends parallel to the body (sometimes braided on itself) until reaching the base, facilitating the stability of the container and its apprehension.

Regarding the composition of the essences they contained, we can point out as an example a tubular unguent jar that was recovered in Caesaraugusta on a terrace level from the time of Claudius (45/50 AD); The analysis of the interior substances allowed us to identify remains of rosacea pollen, oleic acid and beeswax esters, which were interpreted as ingredients of a "ceratum refrigerans" type perfume (Paz and Ortíz, 2004). In addition to their daily use as containers for scented products or cosmetics for domestic use, they are also frequent in funerary contexts, where both the ointments and their contents are assigned a ritual function.

Morphologically, this piece, described as a tubular container with a rounded base, tends to reproduce the Isings 8 shape (Morin-Jean 21), a very common type of unguent jars whose origin dates back to the Julio-Claudian period, reaching its greatest peak and very high production. abundant in the second half of the 1st century AD, and then stopped being manufactured in the 2nd century AD, although some specimens have also been found in contexts from the 3rd and 4th centuries. However, the piece fits more with the description of "test tube unguentary" (Salinas and Salinas, 2005), Isings 27 shape, a variant of the Isings 8 type that is mainly characterized by not having the usual narrowing or strangulation seen in the previous one to separate, with more or less evidence, the body of the neck. It is a container whose shape also includes the Morin-Jean 20/21 type, it appears much less frequently than the already named shape 8 and its chronology goes from the Augustan period to the Flavian period.

The original model of this piece would have been made using the air-blown glass technique. This is a procedure that first appeared in Syria in the 1st century BC. and its application caused glass containers to go from being luxury pieces to common household items. Its large-scale production in the Empire was already a fact in the time of Tiberius and in the middle of the 1st century AD. It is confirmed that blowing was the technique used by glassmakers in Italy, Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula.

In Tarragona, this type of glass work is documented at the beginning of the reign of Tiberius (circa 20 AD), and its manufacture in the area of the middle Ebro valley is proven between the years 50 and 60 AD. (Paz, 1998), according to the workshop identified in Celsa (Zaragoza). In Caesaraugusta, blown glass elements have been recovered in the context of the foundations of the final paving of the forum square (around the year 10-20 AD, Ortíz, 2001); These are several fragments of transparent turquoise green drinking glasses. At the end of Claudio's time, this material had a very wide use, as demonstrated by the large batch of glass found in the excavations carried out in a warehouse on La Cadena and Antonio Agustín streets.

The reproduction exhibited in this museum has been made with the scientific and artistic technique of glass blowing using a butane or propane gas torch and oxygen. It has been formed from a borosilicate glass tube, with 85% silica, heated and worked at a temperature of 1,100ºC with a blowtorch that reaches 1,800ºC in flame and which allowed the material to be heated many times and thus work with great precision. . To give the ointment a greenish hue, bromine oxide was applied.