lLong-lost clues hidden in ancient Roman glassware may have revealed a secret collective of artisans. And it's all thanks to archaeologist and glassblower Hallie Meredith, who once looked at Roman objects called glass cage cups or diatreta at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She happened to unwrap one, starting a series of discoveries.
“Being a creator by training, I always wanted to shake things up,” Meredith said in an interview. statement. “When this happens, patterns appear that everyone else has literally photographed out of frame.”
Meredith noticed motifs, including crosses, leaves and diamonds, next to the words “wishing [the cup’s] the owner of a long life.” Previously, such symbols were called decorative, but she saw something more. This chance observation grew into a hunt for glass treasures: she found similar symbols on other objects. diatreta dating from the fourth and sixth centuries, works that have intrigued scholars for centuries.
Read more: “The strange life of glass»
It was already known that artisans started with large pieces of thick glass, which were cut into two layers, connected by intricate glass bridges. Meredith's detective work suggests that these glass artists used the symbols found on these cups to form a visual language, as reported in the April magazine. Journal of Glass Research paper And World Archeology paper published last month.
“It is clear that such symbols were not simply 'decorative' but instead had a meaning and intent that had not previously been recognized or appreciated,” she wrote in Journal of Glass Research paper.
Inspecting the unfinished fragments diatretatool marks and inscriptions, Meredith suggests that teams of apprentices, polishers and engravers worked on these magnificent works – painstaking projects that could take years to complete. These motifs may have related to the regional workshops where the cups were made. “They were the ancient equivalent of a brand,” she said.
Meredith hopes her work could lead to further discoveries in the field. diatreta production – and we will paint a more complex picture of ancient artisans. “There is a static picture of people doing work,” Meredith said. “We assume we understand them because we focus on the elites. But when the evidence is collected, much more is known about these artisans than previously thought.”
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Main image: Carol Raddato/Wikimedia Commons
