Yellow Green Hexagonal Glass Bottle with a Stylite Saint in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2010

Yellow Green Hexagonal Glass Bottle with a Stylite Saint
Mold-blown
Byzantine, probably from Syria
Made 450-650

Accession # 61.247

The stylite saints depicted on tall glass vessels made in Syria were men who renounced the world and lived atop pillars (styloi). Most renowned was Saint Symeon the Stylite the Elder (389-459), whose pillar on the mountain of Qal'at Sem'an, near Antioch, became the center of a large pilgrimage complex. Pilgrims collected dirt from the base of his column.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.