Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T00:02:03.495Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hellenistic and Roman mosaic glass: a new theory of production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Susan Dawes
Affiliation:
University of Central England

Abstract

This article argues for a revision of the theories and assumed production methods used in Hellenistic and Roman mosaic glass. Knowing how glass behaved in different circumstances under differing heat processes allowed for the possibility of experimenting and demonstrating the inconsistencies in many of the accepted explanations of mosaic production. Experiments were run to test new production ideas, contrasting the findings with previously suggested production methods. The findings bring into question many of the accepted hypotheses for mosaic production. The evidence and hypotheses formed from the experiments challenge many of the traditionally held ideas for the production of this glass and reinforce the need for experimental and practice-based approaches to this type of work.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 e.g. Goldstein, S. M., Pre-Roman and Early Roman Glass (New York, 1979)Google Scholar.

2 Tait, H., Five Thousand Years of Glass (London, 1991), 220Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 219.

4 Ibid., 228.

5 Ibid., 220.

7 Harden, D. B., ‘Ancient glass’, Antiquity, 7 (1933), 419–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Nicholson, P., ‘Industrial archaeology in Amarna’, Egyptian Archaeology, 7 (1995), 1416Google Scholar.

9 Goldstein (n. 1).

10 Petric, W. M. F., Tell El Amarna (London, 1891)Google Scholar.

11 Nicholson (n. 8).

12 Goldstein (n. 1).

13 Grose, D. F., Early Ancient Glass (New York, 1989)Google Scholar.

14 Tait (n. 2).

15 F. Schuler, ‘Ancient glassraaking techniques, the moulding process’, Journal of Glass Studies (1959).

16 Tait (n. 2).

17 F. Schuler (n. 15).

18 e.g. White, K. D., Greek and Roman Technology (London, 1986), 41–7Google Scholar.

19 Tait (n. 2), 220.