Aryballos (Unguentarium)

Colorful enamel inlays elaborate the twelve large pentagonal panels covering the surface of this Roman bronze aryballos. Within these panels, curling tendrils on a blue enamel background surround an inner pentagon outlined in red enamel. The inner pentagons contain different decorative motifs, including birds and rosettes. The use of enamel and pentagonal panels is typical of metal vessels made in northern Gaul.

With its round body and broad mouth, this aryballos reproduces the shape of a type of handleless ancient Greek vessel used to hold perfumed oils, popular six hundred years before this object was made. This Roman version has an enameled metal handle suspended from wire loops. Stylized elephant heads, now missing their trunks, form the attachment points on the mouth of the vessel, yet the heavy weight of the metal vessel's body would have made the handle nonfunctional.