Overview

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of the excavation history of these vessels’ find-spots is provided, with details for each excavation, in many cases unpublished and identified through research in the archives of the relevant museums and Ephorates of Antiquities.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.

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9781784916794

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Anastassios C. Antonaras, a specialist in the history of glass, jewellery and textiles, is an archaeologist and curator at the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki. His books include: Glassworking, Ancient and Medieval: Terminology, Technology and Typology; A Greek- English-English-Greek Dictionary; Roman and Early Christian Glassworking: Vessels from Thessaloniki and its Region (which received a prize from the Academy of Athens in 2010); Fire and Sand: Ancient Glass in the Princeton University Art Museum; and Artisanal Production in Ancient and Byzantine Thessaloniki: Archaeological, Literary and Epigraphic Evidence. Antonaras has organized numerous exhibitions and symposia, and has published numerous articles on objects from Thessaloniki. He currently serves on the board of the Christian Archaeological Association and is the secretary general of the International Association for the History of Glass.

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