Roman Glass Tear Bottle, 100 CE - 300 CE
Glass
0.625 x 5
GF.0160
In the classical world, when a loved one died, mourners would catch their falling tears in a bottle like this and bury them as a token of eternal devotion. The...
In the classical world, when a loved one died, mourners would catch their falling tears in a bottle like this and bury them as a token of eternal devotion. The tears have vanished with time, but the bottle endures as a talisman of some ancient passion. Delicate as a teardrop itself, it reminds us that the essential human emotions have hardly changed since it captured someone's sadness. When we hold it today and think of that lost love, the emotion is reborn across the ages.