Interpreting Recycling in the Roman Glass from Colchester

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

By the time of the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43, the Roman glass industry had reached its height, largely due to the development of a glass-blowing technique which allowed glass vessels to be produced in greater quantities and variety of shapes contributing to its wider use. Antimony, a decolorizer used in the glass industry of Egypt produced the most brilliant colorless glass in the Empire. However, over the Roman period the use of antimony gradually diminished until it was completely replaced by manganese (an alternative decolorizer) in the 4th century AD. Along with the development of glass was the industry of recycling, which produced new glass objects from discarded material. Antimony and manganese concentrations of 101 samples from sites within Colchester dating to the Roman Period were analyzed. Using the Olympus Delta pXRF, one can measure quantities of antimony and manganese in transparent naturally-colored and decolorized colorless glass. These measurements reveal if concentrations indicate a deliberate separation of antimony-decolorized glass and manganese-decolorized glass in the recycling process. By understanding the various compositional groups and comparing them against the typological groups and dated context, a more detailed picture of the recycling behaviors and socio-economy of the area has emerged.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41644.0