C. Höpken/F. Schäfer, Glasverarbeitung und Glaswerkstätten in Köln. In: G. Creemers/B. Demarsin/P. Cosyns (Hrsg.), Roman Glass in Germania Inferior. Interregional comparisons and recent results. Atuatuca 1, 2006, 74–85 (original) (raw)

On the making, mixing and trading of glass from the Roman military fort at Oudenburg (Belgium)

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

This paper presents the analysis of decoloured and naturally coloured glass from well-dated contexts in the southwest corner of the Roman fort at Oudenburg (Belgium) ranging from the late second to the early fifth century AD. The aim is three-fold. First, provide comparative material in the study of glass consumption from the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire. Secondly, evaluate possible diachronic shifts in the applied decolourizing agent to produce colourless glass as to assess potential correlations between glass production recipes, provenance and chrono-typology. Finally, provide an added value to the research of glass recycling and mixing in the Roman imperial period. Nine subgroups are distinguished based on their chemical composition determined by LA-ICP-MS: Sb-only, two groups of Mn-only, four groups of mixed Mn-Sb, HIMT and one glass without any decolouring agent. The Sb-decoloured glass is used in the earliest phases and can be attributed to an Egyptian provenance. The two subgroups of Mn-glass likely come from different provenances: one from Egypt and the other later one from the Levant. Most of the glass shows high marks of mixing based on high trace elements concentrations and the simultaneous presence of antimony and manganese. Inhomogeneous mixing of manganese and antimony was also detected through μXRF. One Mn-Sb subgroup likely comes from mixing antimony glass with HIMT. The obtained results help better recognise the shifts in applied glass recipes throughout the Roman imperial period and improve our understanding about the mixing and recycling of glass to supply a Roman military camp.

Archaeological and Archaeometric Study of the Roman and Late Antique Glass

The Yurta-Stroyno Archaeological Project. Studies on the Roman Rural Settlement in Thrace, 2022

1413 glass fragments were found at the settlement of Yurta -Stroyno during the three years of excavation and one year of the surface survey. Most of the retrieved glass was highly fragmented, which is a result of the fragility of the material itself as well as of its deposition in secondary contexts. The glass collection from Yurta -Stroyno includes a wide range of vessels and glass items, such as personal ornaments and window panes. For the vessels, high quality glass was used, resulting in thin -walled fragments made of translucent, colourless glass, with a minimum of impurities. glass was decorated by wheel -cutting, mould blowing and applied threads. During the surface survey, a group of specific glass fragments was found, later identified as waste from glass production. these include threads, drops, moils, heat -melted fragments and fragments of raw glass, with the latter counting 81 pieces with total weight of 189 g. The retrieved glass material was first typologically classified and preliminary dated based on comparattive data from other settlements, further, the method of XRF analysis was chosen to complement the data needed to interpret the finds. The analysed set of samples represents a selection of different glass objects (89 pcs.), and fragments of the raw glass and the production waste (including production indicators; 28 pcs.)

Roman Window Glass: A Comparison of Findings from Three Different Italian Sites

Archaeometry, 2010

Thirty-three samples of window glass and five glass lumps coming from three Italian archaeological sites-the Suasa excavations (Ancona, settled from the third century BC to the fifth to sixth centuries AD), the Roman town of Mevaniola (Forlì-Cesena, settled from the Imperial Age up to the fourth century AD) and Theodoric's Villa of Galeata (Forlì-Cesena, settled from the sixth century AD onwards)-were analysed to track the changes in the chemical composition and manufacturing technology of window glass through the centuries. The aims of this study were: (1) to establish the origin of the raw materials; (2) to verify the chemical homogeneity among samples coming from different sites and/or produced using different techniques; and (3) to sort the samples into the compositional groups of ancient glass. The analysis of all the chemical variables allowed two groups to be distinguished: (a) finds from Mevaniola and Suasa; and (b) finds from Galeata. All the samples had a silica-soda-lime composition, but the analysis of minor elements-in particular, of Fe, Mn, and Ti-made it possible to split the samples into two groups, with the higher levels of these elements always found in the Galeata samples (HIMT glass). In conclusion, it can be asserted that the main differences between the samples are related to their chronology.a rcm_479 252..271

The analysis of ancient glasses part II: Luxury Roman and early medieval glasses

JOM, 1996

In Part I (November 1995 JOM, pages 62-64), ancient glass as a material was described, including the raw materials used for its production and its resulting working properties. Some scientific techniques of analysis were outlined, as were the ways in which they were used in the investigation of ancient glass. The gross compositions, the trace impurities, the colorants, and the opacifiers can all he identified and quantified using a range of techniques; this can lead to clearly defined characteristics for glass made at specific times and in specific regiOns and places. The first example of glass production discussed was prehistoric Italian glass-the first true European glass produced. LUXURY ROMAN GLASS the opaque white glass contains a rela-neither the opaque nor translucent tively high level of lead oxide 4 and is glasses used to make them contained a opacified with calcium antimonate crys-high level of lead oxide. It is, therefore, tals. possible that the stock of opaque white A series of analyses of opaque white glass used for the manufacture of large glasses used in the manufacture of mo-luxury glass vessels such as the Portland saic pillar-molded ribbed bowls (some vase and the Kunsthistorische Museum of which probably date to the late 1st vessel, both probably made in the Medicentury B.C., and the rest date to the 1st terranean world, was manufactured in century A.D.) has revealed that the opaque the same tradition, irrespective of vessel white glass used contains significantly form. To the author's knowledge, none Although a limited amount of analyt-lowerlevels oflead oxideS and can easily of the common mosaic-ribbed bowls ical research has been carried out on be distinguished from the glass used in have been found to contain opaque white luxury Roman glass vessels, the small the Portland vase and the vessel in glass with high-lead oxide; this distincamount that has been done is instructive Vienna. This simple distinction appears tion shows that there was a difference in in that it shows interesting compositional to be related to the difference in the workshop practice reflected in an incharacteristics that must be explained. technology used. The Portland vase of creased volume of production. The

Things that travelled - A review of the Roman glass from Northern Adriatic Italy

Things that Travelled - Mediterranean Glass in the First Millennium AD, 2014

The volume aims to contribute to our understanding of glass production, distribution, trade and technologies and to contextualise this material within the social, economic and cultural framework of ancient societies. Chapters encompass various glass artefact groups (jewellery, vessels, secondary and primary production remains) from a plethora of regions such as Greece (Antonaras), Bulgaria (Cholakova and Rehren), Cyprus (Cosyns and Ceglia), the Libyan Sahara (Duckworth and Mattingly), Egypt (Rosenow and Rehren), Italy (Maltoni et al., Silvestri et al.), Jordan (O'Hea), Israel (Phelps), Britain (Sainsbury, Davis and Freestone), covering the Roman, Late Antique and early Islamic periods. Aspects discussed include the place of origin and production of raw glass, technology, patterns of distribution and trade, raw glass ingredients, the usage and spread of specific object groups such as gold-glass (Cesarin, Walker et al.), gems (Antonaras) or objects made of emerald green glass (Cottam and Jackson), as well as the relationship between objects made of glass and other materials. Analytical chapters focus on the chemical definition, introduction and distribution of various raw glass groups such as HIMT glass (Freestone et al.), aspects such as glass recycling (Sainsbury), the supply and trade of natron and plant ash glass in Upper Egypt (Rosenow and Rehren), and the characterisation of new plant ash glass groups in early Islamic Palestine (Phelps). We would like to thank all authors of the chapters included here as well as the other contributors to the conference for presenting their research. Further thanks are due to the British Museum, the Wallace Collection, and UCL's Institute of Archaeology for providing conference space; to UCL and the Association for the History of Glass for providing funding (grants for travel and accommodation for participants, print permissions for images); and to UCL Press. Finally, we would like to thank all those students of UCL who helped in the organisation of the conference, in particular

The Impact of Glassblowing on the Early-Roman Glass Industry (circa 50 B.C. – A.D. 79)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ancient glass was frequently treated as though it was a prestigious product, owned only by the elites of society. Research was primarily art-historical, and focused on select museum pieces. As archaeology developed, it became clear that glass vessels were used at many, if not most, Roman sites, from the late first century B.C. onward, and in many different social contexts, contradicting the idea that only the rich could afford them. Scholars began to explain the increased prevalence of glass by arguing that the invention of glassblowing (circa 50 B.C.) had increased production speed while lowering production costs, making glass vessels cheap and widely available across the social spectrum This thesis explores the role of blown glass by comparing the percentages and forms produced by older casting techniques in glass vessel assemblages from military sites, civilian sites, frontier settlements, and settings at the heart of the Roman world. It seeks to understand the social and economic status of blown glass and cast glass: why did cast glass persist after the invention of cheaper blown glass? Was cast and blown glass equally accessible to different levels of society? And to what extent can the invention of glassblowing bear responsibility for the rise in glass vessel use in the Roman world? By drawing comparisons between vessels from different production methods, and from different social and geographical contexts, this thesis begins to identify emerging patterns in glass use across Roman society and finds that both cast and blown vessels were used across all levels of society and that there was no strict divide between the use of casting for luxury wares and glassblowing for cheap utilitarian wares.

The Late Antique Glass from Mayen (Germany): First Results of Chemical and Archaeological Studies

In: Bettina Zorn / Alexandra Hilgner (ed.), Glass along the Silk Road from 200 BC to AD 1000. RGZM - Tagungen 9 (Mainz 2010) 15-28.

"Late Antique glass vessels originating from the cemetery of Mayen are currently being studied by the RGZM. According to the distribution of vessels, which are decorated with diagonal ribs, a production in the Mayen region seems likely, while few different decorated vessels were imported from distant production centres. The glass workshops in northern Gaul and the Rhineland were located in the largest agglomerations in the early Roman Empire, while many Late Antique workshops produced glass wares in minor settlements. Chemical μ-XRF (micro X-ray Fluorescence) analyses show that the Mayen glasses have two different compositions: Typical Roman soda-lime-silica-glass and HIMT-glass. The data are compared with glass from the contemporary find spots in Hambach and Krefeld-Gellep. In Mayen HIMT-glass occurred only in the 4th and 5th century, while typical Roman composition is also found with earlier objects. Political or economic factors may account for the change in composition and the change in the distribution of glass workshops in Late Antiquity."