Glassware and Glassworking in Thessaloniki: 1st Century BC - 6th Century
AD is a detailed examination of the production of glass and glass
vessels in the eastern Mediterranean from the Hellenistic Age to the
Early Christian period, analysing production techniques and decoration.
The volume establishes the socio-economic framework of glassmaking and
glassmakers' social status in the Roman world generally and in
Thessaloniki specifically, while identifying probable local products.
Presented are all the excavation glass finds from Thessaloniki and its
environs found between 1912 and 2002. A typological classification was
created for almost 800 objects - which encompass the overwhelming
majority of common excavation finds in the Balkans - as well as for the
decorative themes that appear on the more valuable pieces. Comparative
material from the entire Mediterranean was studied, verified in its
entirety through primary publications. A summary of the excavation
history of these vessels' find-spots is provided, with details for each
excavation, in many cases unpublished and identified through research in
the archives of the relevant museums and Ephorates of Antiquities. The
uses of glass vessels are presented, and there is discussion and
interpretation of the reasons that permitted, or imposed, the choice of
glass for their production. The finds are statistically analysed, and a
chronological overview examining them century by century on the basis of
use and place of production is given. Finally, there is an effort to
interpret the data from the study in historical terms, and to
incorporate the results into the political-economic evolution of the
region's political history. Relatively unfamiliar glassmaking terms are
explained in a glossary of glassworking technology and typology terms.
The material is fully documented in drawings and photographs, and every
object in the catalogue is illustrated. A detailed index of the 602
geographical terms in the work, many unknown, concludes the book.
