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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2022
Artefact collections are a key means for many people to interact with classical antiquity. The physicality of objects easily appeals to the imagination, evoking associations between the object and the viewer's experiences. Reception of artefacts is thus multilayered, even regarding what may seem to be very simple objects, such as ancient glass vessels uncovered and collected around the middle of the nineteenth century. Drawing on research into the Damon Collection (Canterbury Museum, New Zealand) this study explores Victorian reception of Roman glass, demonstrating the many and often complex ways in which objects of utilitarian origin in classical antiquity gained new meaning and surprising popularity among a broad public. Glass vessels were receptacles for ideas and the imagination, from adventure to questions of religion and empire. In particular, vessels identified as ‘lachrymatories’ became a very personal empathetic link to the classical past, with influence on popular imagination enduring to the present day.
1 Damon published A Catalogue of the Shells of Great Britain and Ireland with Their Synonyms and Authorities (Weymouth, 1857), and The Geology of Weymouth and the Isle of Portland. With Notes on the Natural History of the Coast and Neighbourhood (London, 1860). In 1890 he published a local archaeological find: ‘Roman Amphora or Wine Jar’, Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Proceedings 11 (1890), 88–90.
2 Dyson, S., In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts. A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New Haven, CT, 2006), 64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 di Cesnola, L., Cyprus. Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples. A Narrative of Researches and Excavations during Ten Years’ Residence as American Consul in That Island (London, 1878), 83Google Scholar, reports having excavated ‘from 1867 till the end of 1875 at different intervals’. Although Damon probably never crossed paths with Cesnola, he must have been aware of the excavation sites.
4 ‘Cyprus’, South Wales Daily News (16 August 1878), 2. All articles from British newspapers are retrieved from <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk>.
5 ‘Bath Literary and Philosophical Association’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (13 October 1881), 7.
6 Renan, E., Mission de Phénicie (Paris, 1864)Google Scholar, 364, 399, 409. The funds were used in this manner for a period of four years, in spite of Renan himself returning to France.
7 Ibid., 429–30.
8 ‘Advertisements’, New Zealand Herald 15 (21 October 1878). All articles from New Zealand newspapers are retrieved from <https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz>.
9 ‘Travels in the Holy Land’, Southern Times and Dorset County Herald (5 February 1876), 4.
10 J. Scott, The Pleasures of Antiquity (New Haven, CT, 2003), 236.
11 Quoted in Goren, ‘Scientific organizations as agents of change: the Palestine Exploration Fund, the Deutsche Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas and nineteenth-century Palestine’, Science Direct 27 (2001), 153–65.
12 Quoted in ibid., 154.
13 Cook, E. T. and Wedderburn, A. (eds.), The Works of John Ruskin. Volume 36. Letters of Ruskin, (Cambridge, 1909), 115Google Scholar.
14 R. Conder, ‘The Survey of Palestine: Lieut. Claude R. Conder's Reports’, Quarterly Statement – Palestine Exploration Fund (1873–74), 17.
15 Ezekiel 26–28.
16 ‘A Visit to Tyre’, Reading Mercury (7 June 1862), 2.
17 ‘The Present State of Tyre’, Coleraine Chronicle (21 September 1861), 8.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 An 1875 article on a proposed rail network through Syria and Lebanon even comments, regarding ancient Tyre, that ‘little weight, however, can be given to anything Ezekiel may have said on the subject’. In contrast to other articles this one describes the contemporary town of Tyre as ‘busy, thriving, neat’. With Tyre as a proposed terminus there was incentive in a positive description; nevertheless, it presents a very different view that highlights the exaggeration of the romanticizing accounts. ‘Life in Syria’, The Examiner (10 July 1875), 777.
21 Byron, G. G., English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (London, 1809)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 ‘Sphinx’, ‘Antiquities from Cyprus: To the Editor’, Otago Daily Times 3530 (29 May 1873).
23 ‘Sphinx’ (n. 22).
24 ‘Birmingham and Midland Institute Conversazione’, Birmingham Daily Post (14 January 1874), 5.
25 ‘The Roman Remains at Temple-Borough’, Sheffield Independent (29 November 1877), 2.
26 Ibid., 2.
27 ‘The Museum’, Star 7087 (1 May 1901).
28 ‘Iridescent Glass Making’, Globe (17 April 1877), 1.
29 Lightfoot, C. S., The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art. Ancient Glass (New York, 2017), 11Google Scholar.
30 ‘The School of Art Conversazione’, Southern Times and Dorset County Herald (22 February 1879), 3–4.
31 S.G.W.B. ‘A Tear-Bottle from an Ancient Tomb’, The Independent. Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (6 October 1856).
32 Johnson, S. and Stevens, G. (eds.), The Plays of William Shakespeare (London, 1765)Google Scholar. Referred to in Ridley, M. R. (ed.), William Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra (London, 1965), 27–8Google Scholar, which lists several other references to vials of tears in poetry of the same period.
33 ‘Derby Museum Exhibition’, Derby Mercury (30 August 1843), 3.
34 Ellicott, C., Ellicott's Commentary on the Whole Bible. Volume IV. Job–Isaiah (Eugene, OR, 2016; first published 1897), 167Google Scholar.
35 Psalm 56 is in the words of David, recounting his suffering at the hands of the Philistines. These are sorrows that God has taken account of and will avenge, described in metaphor: ‘You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book’ (verse 8).
36 ‘Local Intelligence’, Chelmsford Chronicle 3235 (14 December 1832), 4.
37 S.G.W.B. (n. 31).
38 ‘Roman Tumuli at Rougham’, Bury and Norwich Post, and East Anglian 3195 (20 September 1843).
39 Ibid.
40 ‘Derby Museum Exhibition’, 3.
41 H. P. Robinson, Fading Away, 1858, discussed in P. Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family (Oxford, 1996), 40–1 and pl. 2.
42 Jalland, (n. 40), 289.
43 Garrod, H. W., quoted in Vance, N., The Victorians and Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1997), 145–6Google Scholar. Nineteenth-century scholars attributed Virgil's pathos to some manner of Celtic influence.
44 Vance (n. 42), 270.
45 V. C. Donnellan, The Role of Collections of Classical Antiquities in UK Regional Museums. Visitors, Networks, Social Contexts (London, 2015), 272.
46 Jalland (n. 40), 288, 299.
47 D. Lutz, ‘The Dead Still Among Us: Victorian Secular Relics, Hair Jewellery, and Death Culture’, Victorian Literature and Culture 39 (2011), 127–42.
48 C. Tennyson Turner (1864), in F. B. Pinion and M. Pinion, Collected Sonnets of Charles (Tennyson) Turner (London, 1988), 66.
49 F. D. Sherman, ‘A Tear Bottle’, Atlantic Monthly 77 (1896), 186.
50 E. Richardson, Classical Victorians. Scholars, Scoundrels and Generals in Pursuit of Antiquity (Cambridge, 2013), 102.
51 S.G.W.B. (n. 31).
52 ‘Important Addition to the Museum’, Press 58 (2 May 1901).
53 J. Labat, Voyages du père Labat de l'ordre des FF. Prêcheurs, en Espagne et en Italie. Tome IV (Paris, 1730), 148–9 ; E. M. Littré, Histoire naturelle de Pline traduite en François (Paris, 1778), 149.
54 For example, <https://www.timelesstraditionsgifts.com/history.htm>, <http://www.tearbottle.com/>, and <https://www.memorials.com/tear-bottles.php> all sell contemporary tear bottles; <http://www.lachrymatory.com/> is dedicated purely to the history of lachrymatory use; and <http://www.aaronshoulders.ca/tearjar.htm> gives yet another version of their apparent use by the Greeks and Victorians. Some authors have posted articles online debunking the Victorian layer of the legend: see C. Woodyard, ‘Transparent Fiction: The Myth of the Victorian Tear Bottle’, 16 May 2017, <http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/13531/>; S. Vatomsky, ‘Debunking the Myth of 19th-Century “Tear-Catchers”’, 2 May 2017, <https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tearcatchers-victorian-myth-bottle>. All sites accessed 12 January 2020.
55 A. Vingerhoets, Why Only Humans Weep. Unravelling the Mysteries of Tears (Oxford, 2013), 240.
56 Auckland War Memorial Museum, accession no. 1937.17 (no. 12 in the Ancient Worlds room).
