Raise a Glass: The Late Hellenistic Origins of Domestic Glass Tableware

Summary

For over three millennia after its discovery in the early Bronze Age, glass in the Near East was used almost exclusively in palatial, religious, and funerary contexts, ascribed with high status reflecting the intrinsic or perceived value of the material. But during the last few centuries BCE this pattern changed, as glass cups and bowls began to appear in domestic and other urban areas in greater quantities. This transition occurs before the discovery and diffusion of glass blowing in the first century BCE, which has largely been credited for the democratization of glassware. Instead, sagging and molding technologies, already practiced by the fourth century BCE, became utilized on a wider scale and were effective enough so as not to be supplanted by blowing for almost two centuries after its invention. At the same time, elite, cosmopolitan customers began to demand a supply of glass skeuomorphs of metal, ceramic, and wooden drinking vessels. I argue that two major factors contributed to this new function and market for glass: a decrease in the price of the raw material which enabled it to be manufactured and sold more affordably, and an aspirational economic and social class which emulated palatial consumption practices.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Glass and Glass technology: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Archaeological Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage