568. Spindle Whorl

Condition

Intact.

Description

Perforated, truncated conical object of dark green (seemingly black) glass. Around the sloping sides of the body, 12 vertical ribs are tooled. A white thread is wound spirally seven or eight times; the lower and upper revolutions are straight, and the six central ones are combed and appear wavy. The lower side is slightly irregular and retains the profile of the surface where the mass of glass was shaped into the whorl. The walls of the hole are smooth; both edges are mildly curved, especially the one on the bottom surface, from the intrusion of the metal rod that pierced it.

Comments and Comparanda

Glass spindle whorls are relatively common finds from the Early Roman period, and this particular form in particular, with a white thread wound spirally from bottom to top, is well-studied, with hundreds of published examples from all of Europe and the Mediterranean dated to the first century CE (Haevernick [1972] 1981, pp. 136–148; Ravagnan 1994, p. 175, no. 339; Barkóczi 1996, p. 111, no. 364; Larese and Zerbinati 1998, p. 92, no. 169; Spaer 2001, pp. 259–260; Beretta and Di Pasquale 2004, p. 334, no. 4.69; Foy 2010a, p. 484, nos. 1005–1007; Arveiller-Dulong and Nenna 2011, pp. 332–335; Antonaras 2019, p. 263 no. 423).

Provenance

Found: Olbia, Ukraine (first recorded in von Saldern 1974); Pierre Mavrogordato, Greek, 1870–1948 (Berlin, Germany); by 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his son, Gert Oppenländer, 1988; 1988–2003, Gert Oppenländer (Waiblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003

Bibliography

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 253, no. 739.

Exhibitions

Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)