Bottle

This Roman glass bottle with a handle, dates to 1st and 2nd centuries CE. It was made by blowing glass into a mould and has a blue-green appearance. It is believed that these four-sided bottles were used to ship food around the empire, but it could have been made and used locally, filled with foodstuffs such as olive oil. We do not know what this bottle contained, but scientific analyses of other similar bottles have found vegetable oil, probably olive oil. Archaeologists found this bottle in the burial of a man at Mansell Street (city and Tower Hamlets), where it had been carefully placed, so the they had food or drink for their journey to the afterlife, or enabled them to 'join in' the funerary feast their mourners would have had at the grave-side. These feasts took place when the person was buried and also at an annual festival. Archaeologists think that this bottle may have been an heirloom, as it had been carefully looked after for nearly a 100 years before it was placed in the person's grave.