Journal of Roman Pottery Studies Volume 20

The latest issue of long running, highly regarded Journal, this issue focuses on new methodological approaches and initiatives alongside reports on new discoveries at major pottery production centres.

The new volume of the long-running Journal of Roman Pottery Studies will include conference proceedings of the 2019 conference held at Atherstone, Warwickshire, and the 50th anniversary conference of the Study Group for Roman Pottery held online with Newcastle University. Papers reflect on recent advances in methodological approaches and their applications, the past and future role of the society and new initiatives in archiving policies and their implications. It will also contain a number of papers outside these conferences that focus on pottery production, notably of colour-coated wares in Lincoln and in the province of Noricum, as well as a report on the glass working furnace discovered alongside the pottery production kilns at Mancetter-Hartshill. Book reviews and obituaries are also included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Jan 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888570357

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Glass-working at Mancetter-Hartshill

Caroline M. Jackson

Abstract

This paper examines the nature of glass-working at Mancetter-Hartshill in Warwickshire where, during excavations in the 1960s, a glass-working furnace and glassy waste was recovered. The waste found indicated that glass blowing was taking place, and utilitarian vessels were produced, predominantly in blue-green glass, the most common glass colour of the period. Compositional analysis showed that most of this glass had been recycled many times, the site seemed to have received very little fresh raw glass from the eastern Mediterranean sites. Evidence of furnace re-lining along with the range of different glass compositions, which had a finite lifetime, indicate the furnace was in operation for a period of multiple melts; this was not a single event. Vessel production may also have been periodic, based on demand. This site fits into a picture of small-scale, regional glass-working sites in Britain, outside London, in the mid-2nd century, using cullet as the raw material. Production was relatively low-skilled; they were making utilitarian goods for a relatively local market.

1. Introduction

Britain was a substantial consumer of Roman glass. Some of this arrived as imported vessel glass, but by the 2nd century AD a limited number of small glass-melting furnaces emerged throughout Britain which remelted ready formed glass, made elsewhere in the Empire, and shaped it into simple utilitarian vessels or window glass. These secondary glass-working complexes were often very small and were located where glass was in demand, for instance, in or near towns or military sites, and also where complementary high temperature industries were located (e.g., see Price and Cool 1991; Price 2005; Shepherd and Wardle 2016,