Do jars have a minimum height? Why not just call it a small jar, or a short jar? I've seen cosmetics containers described as jars; another common word for them is pot.

As an antique dealer by trade, I've never heard of pot to describe something glass, nor would I expect a jar to be at shorter than it is wide, although personally I've never seen one. It's entirely possible the word I'm looking for doesn't exist because it seems a bit of a novelty, really.

I suggest you take a look at what cosmetics manufacturers and retailers call their containers. "Jar" and "pot" are both used, though there may also be other words. Google, e.g., "lip balm pots" and you'll see.

“Tin” in this context is predominantly non-North-American usage; in the US and Canada we’d call it a “can”. But still we’d only use tgg f that for a metallic container.

why not "a glass"? in fact I'll post that as an answer...

@corsiKa We certainly have small glass "pots" in Britain. "Potted meat", "potted shrimps", potted many things" come in glass containers.

@Unrelated Quite so - tin plated steel. If they were solid tin they would be worth vastly more than their contents!

In US English, that small container would be called a jar, and in practice would almost always be made of glass (or these days, plastic), though it would usually have a metal lid. Also, it's far more likely that a metal container would be called a "can" rather than a "tin", or sometimes a "tin can", though as pointed out, tin cans aren't actually made of tin these days, and sometimes aren't even tin plated.

you might be thinking of an ampule, which is sort of different

Cristobol Polychronopolis has posted the word vial. Another form of the same word is phial.

"Salve jar" is used in some websites like Amazon, Etsy and herbal sites/blogs.

@Fattie - There's no need to edit, the reference to metal makes sense. (Although I think the OP's original title made it clearer.)

@nnnnnn = gotchya, I didn't read to the end! thanks :)

How is the lid attached? If it is with cloth, you might metaphorically refer to it as a drum.

By the way, a petri dish has a lid.

As it is a fantasy story you could also just have your own word or use a word slightly differently to standard English if you don't like any of the answers given.. For example call it a "Jubal Jar" and then just add a little historical context on how these jars were first used by the Jubal manufacturing corporation, or first used for Jubal salve etc

Defintely a fantasy. We have far more sand available than anything else on this planet, and we still replaced most of our glass containers with metal and plastic ones :)

@Unrelated They aren't made from tin but they are made from tinplate, that is thin steel which is coated with tin. That's why they're called tins in Br English. The process of preserving food in tins (or cans) in tin plated iron cans was devloped in Britain by Paul Durand and Bryan Donkin (Durand having sold his patent to Donkin who was an industrialist}. The British army and navy were the earliest adopters.