Ancient glass: From crystal ball to seeing clear

Abstract

Specific chemical compositions of glass indicate certain raw materials, sources, technical processes and chronologies. A decade ago, Journal of Archaeological Science published a perspective into future glass research, emphasizing the need to further characterize glass compositional groups with their production location and long-distance movement, next to determining the timing and location of inventions and innovations in glass technologies and their spreading in and between ancient societies. While many of the previously suggested lines for future research are very much still valid today, this paper revisits those prospects and offers some thoughts for the decade to come. As different technologies of glass making and more and more areas of production become known through chemical analysis, the prime challenge of glass research in the near future will be to unravel the ‘why’ of these technical developments and innovations. Glass making will need to be studied in its societal and environmental context to come to answers on scales of production, resource management and processes such as recycling. Additionally, cross-craft interactions between glass making and other industries remain understudied and deserve further work.