Hole-mouthed flask; complete. Pale green-tinged colourless; many small bubbles. Fire-rounded rim edge; abraded decoration; pontil scar. Flasks such as this (YORYM : HG146.1) are very rare. They have been found in graves on Northern France, the Rhineland and England, frequently with flasks with funnel mouths (YORYM : HG146.3) as if the deceased was going to need the content of both in the after-life. This pair was accompanied by a second identical pair in a lead coffin, with the skeleton of an adult and some cremated remains possible of a child. At Colchester similar vessels came from the grave of two adolescents, probably girls given their jewellery. Since the hole-mouthed flasks are so rare, it is interesting that a high proportion have been found in graves with female jewellery, for example as Saint Aldegund (Haberey and Roder 1961), Strasbourg (Straub 1881, 105-6) and Reims (Morin Jean 1923, 58). This suggests that they were seen as a feminine possession. The Reims flask has been used as a container for hairpins and one of the York examples had a ring in it; so possibly the hole mouth forms were a type of jewellery box (Cool, H.E.M. 2006, Constantine the Great Catalogue). HG146.1-4 described in Eboracum as "lay in the coffin inpairs, lip tp lip... though it is not apparent whether this position has any special significance. All are of the same colourless fabric with very similar decoration of horizontal wheel-incisions in groups; the neck pieces (HG146.3 - 4) are a pair in size, the other are not."
