This vessel has been made of opaque, dark blue glass with added decorative bands of different colour in the core-forming technique. It belongs to a characteristic class of miniature glass vessels produced during the 6th and 5th c. BC in various parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Those miniatures, which imitated typical Greek pottery shapes (amphora, alabastron, aryballos, oinochoe), were mainly used as perfume-containers.

Glass was first used in the Near East during the 3rd millennium BC for the production of beads and other small articles. The earliest glass vessels – core-formed or cast – come from Egypt and Mesopotamia and date to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. It is from that period onwards that we have evidence for major glass workshops in towns and sanctuaries. 

Glass vessels were relatively rare until the late Hellenistic period and probably regarded as luxuries. The invention of the free-blowing technique in the 1st c. BC revolutionized the process of glass-working and allowed for the mass production of glass objects. Glass vessels became cheaper and, thus, easily obtainable by a standard household.

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