There are
130 Roman glass objects in the Crofts Collection. They include a variety of object types and
decorative styles spanning the Roman Empire.
In this post we’re giving you a detailed look at some of these objects
but if you’d like to see all the glassware from the Crofts Collection, head
over to the Hull Museums Collections website.
Glass is
made by heating sand to a very high temperature, this changes the properties of
the sand and it becomes a molten liquid.
In this state it can be worked in various ways e.g. poured into a mould
or blown. Glassblowing is when someone
uses a long pipe to pick up a glob of molten glass and then blow air through
the pipe to blow out the glass (a bit like blowing up a balloon, except you can
make different shapes). It also can be
coloured by increasing or decreasing oxygen in the furnace or by adding small
amounts of metal. As the molten liquid
cools, it becomes solid again keeping the shape it’s been made into.
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| (c) Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums |
This flask
was free blown - it was made by someone using a pipe to blow molten glass to
create its shape. It has a wide rim
which narrows through the neck to a wide globular (round) body. It’s made from colourless glass with two dark
blue-green handles which have been folded down from the rim, out at an angle and
then down to connect onto the body. It’s
been decorated with dark blue-green glass, which would have been poured onto
the surface of the flask whilst it was molten.
This is known as ‘trailed’ glass.
The decoration consists of a horizontal line running round the rim
section, two horizontal lines around the top of the body and a zig-zag pattern
beneath this. The dark blue-green colour
used for the decoration (as well as the shape of the flask) are typical of
Roman Palestine. The flask was found in
Jerusalem, Israel and dates to 300-500AD.
During this period of time, the economy was given a significant boost
because of the adoption of Christianity.
This brought support from the Roman Emperor and an increase of tourists
(yes, Romans could be tourists!) to the Holy Land. This contributed to the continuation of local
glass production and it was lucrative (making loads of money) for quite some
time.
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| (c) Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums |
This flask
has also been free blown. It’s made from
olive green glass with a wide, flared rim which narrows to a long neck and a
globular body. It has a light green
handle which is looped at the rim and then extends down and attaches to the
body. It has trailed decoration in
blue-green glass with a purple centre.
The decoration consists of horizontal lines running round the outside
surface of the funnel rim and another thick horizontal line running around the
base of the neck (where it meets the body).
It comes from Hebron, West Bank and dates to 300-400AD.
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| (c) Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums |
This one is
also from Hebron, West Bank dating to 200-400AD. It’s pale blue-green in colour and has been
free blown. It’s beautifully shaped with
a thick rim which projects out, a long cylindrical neck which expands to an
almost spherical, globular body.
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| (c) Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums |
This bottle
(200-300AD) is from Nazareth, Israel and is known as an unguentarium. Little bottles like this would have contained
toiletries such as perfumed oils, powders or pastes. It’s made from pale green glass which was
free blown to create this interesting shape.
It has a rim which projects out horizontally, a very long and narrow
cylindrical neck and then two stacked globular sections form the body (the one at the top is slightly smaller than
the one underneath).
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| (c) Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums |
…and now for
something similar but different. This
glass jug was mould blown rather than free blown. So what is mould blowing? To create the shape of the vessel, the glob
of molten glass on the blow pipe is placed inside a mould. The glassblower then blows the glass so it
expands to fit the mould. Then when the
glass is cool it is removed from the mould.
Moulds can be made from clay, wood or metal and are used many times to
create identical vessels. This means
that objects can be mass produced.
The mould
blown glass jug is made from green glass.
Its body has six sides decorated with chevrons and diamonds. This decoration was created by the mould the
glass was blown into – as the glass was blown into the mould, the pattern on
the mould was impressed into the glass.
The jug has a long neck which flares out towards the undulating rim,
which forms a pouring spout. Opposite
the spout is the handle, which has been applied from the rim to where the neck
meets the body. The jug is from Ramleh,
Israel (400-600AD).
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| (c) Hull and East Ridign Museum: Hull Museums |
As you can
see, this double phial has an interesting shape which means it was free blown. The two long cylindrical tubes (like test
tubes) have been completely joined together.
If you look closely, you can see one of the tubes is bigger than the
other. The base is rounded, so it cannot
stand up on its own. The decoration uses
the trailed technique we’ve seen on some of the other objects in this post,
with lines wrapping round the two tubes.
The same technique has been used to decorate the top of the phial
forming seven loops (some are now broken) from the rim down to the body. The phial is from Mount Carmel, Israel
(300-400AD) and would have contained cosmetics or lotions. It probably came with a spatula or applicator
to apply the product.
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| (c) Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums |
Our final
object is a flask from Hebron, West Bank which dates to 200-400AD. It’s free blown with a circular body,
flattened on the front and back. Its
neck is roughly cylindrical and expands up to the rim. The handles have been applied using the
trailing technique, folded to join the middle of the neck and then extending
out and down to meet the top of the body.
The flask has also been decorated with the trailed method – there’s a
thick horizontal line round the neck near the rim and another near the base of
the neck near the body.
In our next
post we’re going to explore some of the Cypriot objects in the collection –
check it out!
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