Perfume Bottle, Balmuildy, Antonine Wall

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This clay perfume bottle was found at the bathhouse at Balmuildy fort. It is 8cm high and 5cm in diameter. Roman bathing followed a process of gradually exposing the skin to warmer and warmer temperatures in a series of heated rooms, encouraging sweating. Moving to a cooler room, scented oils from bottles such as these would have been massaged into the body then scraped off with a strigil, to clean the skin.

The Antonine Wall stretched right across Scotland, from the Clyde to the Forth. Constructed around 142 AD, and occupied for only 20 years, the remains of its ramparts, steep ditches, forts and bathhouses are still visible today. Since 2008, it has been part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.

More information on the World Heritage Site is available on www.antoninewall.org

F.1922.607