Analyses of colourless Roman glass from Binchester, County Durham

Glass Making in the Greco-Roman World: Results of the ARCHGLASS project

“…Each workshop would, in short, produce glass using the raw materials locally available. This 'local' model, similar to the Medieval model of glass production, would result in a large number of chemically distinct glasses being produced (Paynter, 2006). The second model, based on the archaeological evidence of surviving furnace sites (also of a later date than the Roman period), suggests that the glass was made in a small number of primary production centres, and the raw glass was then shipped to workshops all across the Empire for shaping (Freestone, 2005).…”

“…However, these are of a different form to the later tank furnaces excavated in Palestine (Freestone, 2005;Nenna, 2007;Nenna et al, 2000). The tank furnaces of Israel were extremely large producing c. 8-9 tonnes of glass per firing (Freestone et al, 2000;Gorin-Rosen, 2000), but little further archaeological evidence of primary glass production in the 1 st -5 th centuries has yet been found (Paynter, 2006). Although, it has been suggested that further earlier sites may exist in Syro-Palestine and Egypt (Foy et al, 2003;Nenna, 2003;Nenna et al, 2000Nenna et al, , 1997.…”

“…The archaeological evidence for glassmaking in the western part of the Empire is scarce, but, by the late Roman period, glasshouses where vessels or window glass were fabricated were well established across this region (Foster and Jackson, 2010). For example, more than 70 workshops have been excavated in France (Foy et al, 2003;Nenna, 2007;Price, 2005), and more than 20 in Britain (Jackson et al, 2003a, b;Paynter, 2006;Price, 2005). The Roman glass workshops of Western Europe are far more common and often better documented than those of the Eastern Mediterranean (Stern, 2002), but even without the secondary workshops, there is strong evidence for glass production and trade.…”

“…Likewise, a single workshop could receive glass from a number of primary factories (Freestone, 2005). This second model would therefore result in only a few chemically distinct groups (Paynter, 2006). So, the two principal models for glass production and distribution in the Roman Empire are both based on models used for glass manufacture in later periods, i.e.…”

“…HIMT glass typically contains higher concentrations of trace elements, suggesting the use of less pure quartz-sands . Promising groupings of analysed glass fragments could be made based on elements like Zr-Ti (Aerts et al, 2003), Zr-Ti-Cr-La (Shortland et al, 2007;Reade, 2009;Walton et al, 2009) and Zr-SrBa (Freestone et al, 2000;Paynter, 2006;Silvestri, 2008;Silvestri et al, 2008). These elements are usually not related to any colouring agents that could have been deliberately added to the glass batch and can be used to distinguish between different sand raw materials.…”