Worksheet
1. Take a close look at the object. Draw a quick yet detailed sketch of the object below.
2. How would you describe the current state of preservation of the object?
3. Imagine this jar was found (a) in the city of Jerusalem, (b) in a home on Cyprus, or (c) in a cemetery in Rome. How would you interpret the object’s function in each of these contexts?
4. The symbols in this particular jar are Jewish, but the same glassblowers also produced jars with Christian symbols, and jars with symbols that are neither Jewish nor Christian. Does that tell you anything about the relation between Jews and Christians at the time when these jars were produced?
5. The function of these jars is unknown. However, from the same period – the late sixth to early seventh century AD – we have flagons with inscriptions such as ‘oil from the holy places of Christ’ (see image 1), and the following passage from a travel journal:
‘From Golgotha it is fifty paces to the place where the cross was discovered … At the moment when the cross … arrives in the court to be venerated, a star appears in the sky, and comes over the place where they lay the cross. It stays overhead whilst they are venerating the cross, and they offer oil to be blessed in little flasks.’
Based on these two pieces of evidence, what would you say the function of our object was?
Image 1 Lead flagon (The Cleveland Museum of Art)
6. Christians visited Jerusalem to see the places Jesus had been to, but what was the destination of Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem?
7. This flask is part of a series of flasks with Jewish, Christian, and ambiguous symbols, as we have seen. If these flasks were made by the same glassblower, was he (a) a Jew, (b) a Christian, (c) a pagan, or (d) a smart businessman? Explain.