Vessels that contained oil, perfumes or ointments could have different shapes. The classical forms, which only allowed the dropwise pouring of their valuable contents due to a narrow mouth opening, included, for example, spherical aryballoi 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 his wrist. - This specimen is also called a 'football' aryballos because of its decoration. This type is derived from aryballoi, which were originally made of leather. (AVS)
Former August Kestner Collection, Rome
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