Alabastron

This alabastron—a small, narrow-necked perfume or ointment vessel—is carved from alabaster and assigned a broad date range of approximately the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD, placing it within the Parthian period of Mesopotamia. It entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection in 1886 through the Wolfe Expedition, purchased with the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Gift. The form is ancient and widely attested: the alabastron originated in Egypt and the Levant during the Late Bronze Age and persisted across Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, and Parthian cultural contexts. Mesopotamian examples of the Parthian era often served funerary or cosmetic purposes, reflecting trade networks that carried luxury goods across western Asia. The vessel type intersects the biblical record at several notable points. The Synoptic Gospels describe a woman breaking or opening an 'alabastron' of expensive ointment (myrrh-based nard) and anointing Jesus (Matthew 26:7; Mark 14:3; Luke 7:37). The Greek word used—ἀλάβαστρον—refers precisely to this vessel form, confirming that such containers were familiar luxury items in 1st-century AD Judea. The expense of the ointment is consistent with what is known of alabaster vessels carrying high-value aromatic substances across Parthian and Roman trade corridors in exactly this period. The artifact does not prove any specific biblical event, but it materially illustrates the kind of object the Gospel writers had in mind and the commercial world in which such goods circulated. Sources: Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession via Wolfe Expedition, 1886); D. Barag, 'Catalogue of Western Asiatic Glass,' British Museum; Journal of Glass Studies (Corning Museum); R. Stern, Roman Mold-blown Glass (1995).