Recherche par auteur > Almudena Velo-Gala

In recent years, the study of glass in archaeological contexts has revealed the importance of this material for the development of societies throughout history. The versatility of glass and the technical improvements introduced in this type of craftsmanship at the end of the 1st century BC facilitated a wide expansion and demand for this type of product over the next century. Many secondary glass workshops were set up in different parts of the Empire, including the more peripheral provinces. These small secondary workshops produced vessels and objects through recycling practices and the use of raw glass imported from other primary centres located in areas along the Syrian-Palestinian coast and in Egypt, close to the sources of the raw materials needed for their manufacture.

In the case of Hispania, the results of the research carried out by Sánchez de Prado and Da Cruz, presented at the XVIII CIAC held in Mérida in 2013, provided an overview of the glass craftsmanship in the Iberian Peninsula based on the findings known up to that time. However, over the last ten years, the study of glass has continued to be an undertaking carried out by few researchers and little progress has been made in our knowledge of it.

Throughout this communication, a review will be made of the new contributions made on the glass craftsmanship in this province. This analysis will be complemented with a study of the main production centres and the evolution of the facilities throughout this period. In addition, questions related to archaeological evidence and the challenges posed by archaeometric studies of materials, which have been on the rise in recent years, will be addressed.

While archaeometry is an important tool for establishing trade flows between the eastern Mediterranean and the other provinces that made up the Empire through the analysis of the remains of raw glass, its application to artefacts and vessels is more dubious. The results of the physico-chemical characterisation of the glass have allowed us to address important questions such as those related to: glass deterioration, manufacturing patterns, the raw glass used and recycling practices. However, it is difficult to distinguish which workshops produced these products from the results obtained. For this reason, the most reliable indicators for this are still typological studies, local particularities or the abundance of several typologies in certain areas. These questions, together with the assumption that, due to the fragility of the glass, commonly used vessels were made in nearby glass workshops, allow us to establish a hypothesis about the repertoire of glassware made in Hispania.