Early Corinthian aryballos with animal decoration. Recess in the underside, bordered by a circle of dots. On the front of the vessel a goose to the right between antithetically arranged lions. The filling pattern is blob rosettes. Mouth plate with row of dots. Handle with horizontal stripes.
Vessels containing oil, perfumes or ointments could have different shapes. Among the classical forms, which because of a narrow mouth only allowed the valuable contents to be poured out drop by drop, were, for example, spherical aryballos with a wide flat mouth plate.
The aryballos belongs to the so-called palaestra set. In addition to the ointment vessel containing the body oil, this set consisted of a scraping iron (strigilis) for cleaning the skin and a sponge for wet cleaning. The required items were usually worn by the athlete on a leather strap on the wrist. (AVS)
Former collection Erhart Kästner, Wolfenbüttel
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