Bell-shaped mug
The bell-shaped beakers are a rare form of early medieval glass vessels widespread in the 5th to 6th centuries .
They are derived from the bell beakers, but have a stronger constriction in the middle of the beaker. Instead of the base ring, they also have a spherical bottom tip or, more rarely, a round bottom. What they have in common is the bell-shaped shape with the very softly rounded lower cup area.
They differ in an elongated (type A) and a wide variant (type B).
The elongated bell-shaped beakers go back to a Roman preform and appear as early as the 5th century. They are clearly elongated, have almost conical walls and are very similar to the fall cups , from which they differ, however, in their stronger profile and less emphasized outline.
The wide, bell-shaped cups developed from the elongated variant towards the end of the 5th century. Due to the retraction of the cup wall, they are more structured and thus have a shape similar to the bell cup. However, they differ from them in the bottom tip instead of the base ring and the slight indentation of the cup wall. In addition, they are often provided with complicated thread patterns.
The bell-shaped cups are, like all early medieval glasses, mostly light green, yellow or olive green or blue green. As a rule, these are natural colors that can be traced back to contamination of the quartz sand required for production with iron oxides. The color could also be achieved in a targeted manner, for example by adding copper oxides. The glasses are also often and very heavily riddled with bubbles, black soot particles and streaks. This could be an intended type of ornament.
See also
literature
- Birgit Maul: Early medieval glasses from the 5th - 7th / 8th centuries Century AD: Sturzbecher, bell-shaped tumbler, tumbler and bell tumbler (= university research on prehistoric archeology , volume 84), R. Habelt, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-7749-3088-0