Ancient and Roman Glass
from the
Glass Encyclopedia

Glass was used in the form of a glaze on stone objects, on clay or pottery objects, and on objects made of faience (powdered quartz) as early as the 27th century BC in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Glass objects such as beads and seals are known to have been made in about the 18th or 19th century BC in Mesopotamia, and these are thought to be the earliest artifacts made entirely from glass. Glass beads with dates that could be verified were made in the 15th and 16th centuries BC in Syria, Palestine, as well as Mesopotamia. Next came glass vessels, core formed by wrapping strands of molten glass around a packed-sand core which was removed once the glass cooled, and made in Mesopotamia and Egypt as early as the 16th century BC. Cast glass vessels and mosaic pieces came next, but it was not until the mid to late first century BC that glass blowing was invented, probably in Syria which was a Roman province at the time.

The importance of Roman Glass derives partly from the status of glass making as a major craft within the Roman Empire. Glass making was a small scale artisan activity until Emperor Augustus (emperor from 27BC to 14AD) decided to include glassmaking in the crafts he wanted to develop by centralising them in Italy. He imported glass workers from Syria and Judea along with their tools, skills, and technologies and the Eastern methods of mold-casting and free-blowing grew into an industry on the Italian mainland. They didn't volunteer, most of them were brought to Italy as slaves. Nevertheless, glass soon became a successful alternative to pottery for tableware and containers for liquids and foods and its use and manufacture spread throughout the Roman Empire.

And just like today, glass was used for utilitarian purposes like storing liquids but also for decorative artistic purposes, like the Cantharus (two-handled cup) shown above. This blown glass cup is decorated with gold foil cupids sandwiched between two layers of glass which have been fused together. It has a cage and glass handles that were then applied.

There is another kind of caged vessel produced by Roman glass artists, where the cage is carved away from the glass body of the piece. The Lycurgus Cup, now in the Britith Museum, is a superb example of a caged cup. It was many years before modern glass artists developed the skills to reproduce that technique. The Lycurgus Cup has the added feature that it is opaque olive green in normal light but when the light shines through it the colour changes to translucent red. The reason for this is because of the colloidal gold and silver which was included in the molten glass mixture together with various chemicals.