An alabastron is a type of pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 used in the ancient world for holding oil, especially perfume or massage oils. They originated around the 11th century BC

11th century BC

The 11th century BC comprises all years from 1100 BC to 1001 BC. Although many human societies were literate in this period, some of the individuals mentioned below may be considered legendary rather than fully historical.-Events:...

 in ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 as containers carved from alabaster

Alabaster

Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals, when used as a material: gypsum and calcite . The former is the alabaster of the present day; generally, the latter is the alabaster of the ancients...

 – hence the name – but spread via ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 to other parts of the classical world.

Most types of alabastron have a narrow body with a rounded end, a narrow neck and a broad, splayed mouth. They were often left without handles, but some types were equipped with ear-shaped projections or lug

Lug (knob)

A Lug is a typically flattened protuberance, a knob, or extrusion on the side of a vessel: pottery, jug, glass, vase, etc. They are sometimes found on prehistoric ceramics/stone-vessels such as pots from Ancient Egypt, Hembury ware, claw beakers, and boar spears.A lug may also only be shaped as a...

s into which holes were punched. Strings were then put through these holes for easy mobility.

The design of the first Egyptian alabastra was inspired by the palm tree, with a columnar shape, a palm capital and a stand. Later designs were made from glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

 decorated with various patterns, such as scallop

Scallop

A scallop is a marine bivalve mollusk of the family Pectinidae. Scallops are a cosmopolitan family, found in all of the world's oceans. Many scallops are highly prized as a food source...

s, festoons or abstract patterns of rings or zigzags.

Around the 7th century BC

7th century BC

The 7th century BC started the first day of 700 BC and ended the last day of 601 BC.The Assyrian Empire continued to dominate the Near East during this century, exercising formidable power over neighbors like Babylon and Egypt. In the last two decades of the century, however, the empire began to...

, alabastra spread to Greece and became an important element of ancient Greek pottery

Pottery of Ancient Greece

As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...

. There were three distinct types of Greek alabastron:

• A basic Corinth
  Corinth
  Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
  
  ian bulbous shape standing about 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) tall; a popular design found throughout Greece.

• A long and pointed version commonly seen in eastern Greek, Etruscan
  Etruscan civilization
  Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
  
  , and Italo-Corinth
  Corinth
  Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
  
  ian pottery.

• An Attic
  Attica
  Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
  
   type about 4 to 8 inches long with a rounded base and lugs for carrying purposes.

Alabastra also appeared in many other places in the ancient world, notably Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 and Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, all having presumably been inspired by or exported from Greece or Egypt.

Within a hundred years after arriving in the area, Greek artisans were producing elaborately decorated silver alabastra, long and narrow and twelve to sixteen centimeters in height. The decoration usually involved dividing the body of the vase into four horizontal zones by oramental bands around it.