Things that travelled: Precious things for special people?

Over the last 20 years, considerable progress has been made in identifying the origins of the materials used to produce Roman glass and the location of the primary furnaces where raw glass was made. Testimony to the movement of unworked glass around the Mediterranean is known from shipwreck cargoes and the final links in the production chain, the secondary vessel-forming furnaces, are also increasingly well documented.

But exactly how these glass journeys were structured and the networks of trade and exchange in raw glass in the Roman period remain unclear. The contemporary literary references on the subject are sketchy and the archaeological evidence is tantalising and open to wide-ranging interpretations.

Within the early Imperial glass vessel repertoire, emerald green vessels form an unusual compositional and typological group. Unlike most of the glass of the late Hellenistic and Roman period, emerald green glass was produced with the addition of plant ashes. Examination of the range of forms produced in this relatively short-lived colour also reveals distinct trends and surprising omissions. This chapter illustrates how the focused examination of this single glass colour and of the specific vessel types it was used to produce can begin to clarify some of the essential questions concerning the organisation of the early Imperial glass industry.