Archaeorumi I: Unguentaria

Right, so I appreciate that this might be a little too niche for most people, but I've been trying to design archaeologically themed amigurumi. In my day to day life, I work as an archaeologist, mostly on finds (little field work for me these days) and I specialise in Roman pottery and small finds. 

Roman glass isn't something I know an awful lot about, especially because it is so rare to find, let alone in a complete state. I have always found unguentaria quite charming though, the little medicine bottles that contained oils, make-up and other items used for dressing and treating the body. There are some really fun studies out there that did chemical analysis on remaining contents found in some of these Roman bottles and I've always dreamed of recreating the make-up recipes that Ovidius wrote up in his Medicamina Faciei Femineae (the book shown in the picture). Just a shame that almost all recipes contain things we now know are terribly toxic. Like lead :-) And how on earth does one come by bear fat these days?

There are so many different shapes, sizes and forms of unguentaria, but I tried to make three patterns for some of the smaller ones. And because this is my blog, they're all Late Roman forms! I've used cotton SMC Catania yarn, suitable for a 2.00-2.50mm hook.

You can find the patterns here:

Left to right:

Type 1: Gellep 203

Type 2: Isings 8/27

Type 3: Gellep 523