Glass Inkpots From the Miniatures of Evangelist in the Byzantine Manuscripts

Evangelist miniatures seen in Byzantine manuscripts from the 6th century onwards illustrate an unchanging scheme where saints put down the Bible on paper at their desks. Pictures often depict writing utensils in detail. We characterized the glass bottles that stood out among these vessels as inkpots seen by the 10th century. In this essay, we discuss the functions of Byzantine glass bottles, for which we have limited information about their use, with miniature images. We have also included herein the parts of two bottles we unearthed in Kad？kalesi as Byzantine inkpots, in addition to few samples, two of which are at Thessalonica Byzantine Culture Museum. The shapes of the inkbottles in the miniatures are generally details that repeat the Byzantine bottles and reflect the fashion of the era that the manuscripts were produced. Accordingly, in addition to differing forms, the position and the sizes of the bottles in the image are also strikingly different. The half-full bottles seen in these examples imply that the writing task is about to be completed; or perhaps, there is a metaphoric implication that the ink was a valuable and rare liquid. It is possible to deduce from the pictures that the glass vessel are bottles produced with free-blowing technique and are probably struck-bottomed