Bottlenose dolphin (glass)
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The bottlenose dolphin or tumbler is a characteristic glass vessel from the migration period of the 5th to 8th centuries.
description
The Tumblers are, after the fall of cups , the second most popular glass of the early Middle Ages .
It is a hemispherical cup-like or wide-mouthed bowl-like cup. The tumblers usually have a round bottom, which distinguishes them from the early medieval bowls. As is customary with early medieval glasses, this round bottom also prohibits standing. The edge of the tumblers was melted round or turned wide to the outside.
Tumblers are, like most 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. For the opaque white decorations of the glasses, antimony was added to the glass mass. The glasses are also often and very heavily riddled with bubbles, black soot particles and streaks. This could be an intended type of ornament.
Most of the tumblers appear smooth-walled, but they can also be decorated with models. The model ornament consists in most cases of a few strong ribs. These can end in floor patterns. The ribs on the bottom of the tumbler together with small drop-shaped knobs form different radially arranged patterns with a particularly emphasized center. A distinction must be made between pure dot patterns, pure cross-shaped patterns and a combination of the two. Since the tumblers had to be placed on their edge after drinking, the pattern on the floor was particularly visible here.
Main groups
There are two main groups:
Type A is older than Type B and is largely limited to the 6th century. They are deep, hemispherical cups with almost straight walls and rounded, seldom rolled-up edges.
Type B is lower and more bowl-like with a sweeping mouth and rambling wall. The edge is fused round or bent far outwards, more rarely also broadly turned inwards. Type B follows type A and runs in parallel at times.
There are also various special forms such as the tall, cup-like tumblers.
Undecorated tumblers were probably blown freely, whereas ribbed tumblers with a floor pattern required a model made of stone, clay or wood. Glasses with fine ribs could be rotated when they were pulled out of the model, resulting in angled grooves. In the tumblers with strong ribs this was not possible, so that they run vertically over the glass.
Two-part models were required for complicated decorations such as herringbone, arcade or lettering decorations, which are rare. Clear seams can be seen here.
Bell hummers
The Glockentummler represent a further development of the tumbler. They have a high, cup-like shape with a wide mouth. The lower floor area is a bit wider or, as with the late bell hummers, very slim. The edge is melted round or very rarely turned inside or out. They differ from the actual tumblers by their greater height and the less projecting mouth as well as the slimmer shape in the lower floor area.
Bell dummers are mostly undecorated, but sometimes also decorated with fine vertical grooves. The floor is mostly undecorated or has at most a simple cross pattern, presumably because the bell tumbler has a smaller floor area than the tumbler.
Main groups
There are three main groups that follow one another in time.
Type C with a stretched lower base area and an often broadly folded edge. This type is often assigned to the tumblers.
Type D, with its tall, elongated shape, forms the actual bell-dumpling shape. Most of the finds exist of this type.
With its very slender bottom area, type E already leads over to the Carolingian funnel cups . It is very rare.
Bottlenose dolphins were produced in Franconian glassworks on the Lower Rhine and exported as luxury goods across Europe.
See also
literature
Birgit Maul: Early medieval glasses of 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