![Bottle-IMG 5434](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Bottle-IMG_5434.JPG)
Byzantine glass objects highly resembled their earlier
Hellenistic counterparts during the fourth and early fifth centuries CE in both form and function. Over the course of the fifth century CE,
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
glass blowers, based mostly in the area of
Syria and
Palestine, developed a distinct Byzantine style. While glass vessels continued to serve as the primary vehicles for pouring and drinking liquid, glassware for lighting, currency and commodity weights, window panes, and glass
tesserae
A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive ''tessella'') is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus.
Historical tesserae
The oldest known tessera ...
for
mosaics and enamels also surged in popularity. Following the
Arab conquests of the seventh century CE, large quantities of glass were imported from the Levant, which continued to produce raw and manufactured glass. Scholars once believed that glassware was an expensive luxury good reserved for the upper strata of society, however, recent archaeological excavations have unearthed a considerable quantity of unadorned glassware intended for lower-class residents.
Production
Chemical analyses of Byzantine glassware have demonstrated that Byzantine glass was composed of the same basic materials as Roman glass—combining sand-derived silica, a fluxing agent, and lime, as well as various coloring agents.
Roman and Byzantine glass-making was divided into two phases. The first, called "primary glass-making" involved the conversion of sand and stabilizer into raw glass. Separate workshops would then re-heat the glass and shape it into an object, in a phase referred to as "secondary glass-making". Although there is considerable archaeological evidence establishing primary glass-making sites, secondary glass-making sites remain difficult to pinpoint.
The largest number of glass production sites from the Early Byzantine period have been unearthed in Syria and Palestine, as well as Egypt. Glass factories have also been discovered in Greece (
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government refor ...
,
Thessoloniki) and Asia Minor. A chemical analysis of sixth-century Byzantine glass weights demonstrated that glass was also manufactured in
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the cla ...
and along the
Danube River
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. Literary sources refer to glass-making sites in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
, Emesa (
Homs, Syria
ar, حمصي, Himsi
, population_urban =
, population_density_urban_km2 =
, population_density_urban_sq_mi =
, population_blank1_title = Ethnicities
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), and various Egyptian towns.
Labor
Though some towns were home to glass-maker
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
s, most Byzantine glass-makers were independent entrepreneurs. Glass-workers could be either male or female. An extant glass-making contract from
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...
mentions a woman glass manufacturer.
Glass-making styles and techniques by object
Glass vessel shapes in the Byzantine period did not deviate greatly from those of the high Roman period. Beginning in the late fifth century, glassblowers in the near east produced increasingly larger vessels. They also introduced the folded, stemmed foot. In the sixth and seventh centuries Byzantine glass vessels typically features a delicate u-shaped mouth. A number of "classical" Roman glassware shapes were phased out by the fifth century including: bowls, flat- bottomed cups and beakers, and footed wine jugs featuring trefoil mouths.
A major innovation of the Byzantine period was the invention of the glass lamp. Glass lamps are first attested in the first half of the fourth century CE in Palestine, where they began to replace the clay lamps in use at the time as they were much more efficient. By the middle of the fifth century their use was rapidly spreading westward. Initially these lamps were shaped just like drinking vessels, though the number of shapes expanded to seventeen over the course of the sixth and seventh centuries.
Following the "
Triumph of Orthodoxy
The Feast of Orthodoxy (or Sunday of Orthodoxy or Triumph of Orthodoxy) is celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent in the Eastern Orthodox Church and other churches using the Byzantine Rite to commemorate, originally, only the final defeat o ...
" in 843 CE,
enamel relief icons became the predominant form of iconography in Byzantium. The best-known example is the Michael the Archangel enamel from the treasury of
St. Mark's Basilica in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
.
Silver staining
![Byzantine Glass and Silver-Stain Bracelet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Byzantine_Glass_and_Silver-Stain_Bracelet.jpg)
In the middle Byzantine period, Byzantine glass-makers adopted
silver-staining techniques from the Arab world. Silver-stained glass is created by applying a metallic compound, mixed with a "carrier" of clay or ochre to the surface of the glass object, then the glass is fired below the softening point of the glass. This process results in the breakdown of the smeared compound and its transition into the body of the glass object, creating a "stained" effect. Depending on the makeup of the compound and the "carrier" this process can lead to a wide array of colors. While the Arabs began creating silver-stained glass objects in the late eighth century in Egypt, the first Byzantine silver-stained object has been dated to the ninth century. The most common items featuring Byzantine silver-stain are simple glass bracelets, dating from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, and being discovered across the Byzantine world, from Greece to Anatolia. The most famous example of Byzantine silver-staining is the interior inscription of the beautiful San Marco bowl, dated to the "
Macedonian Renaissance
Macedonian Renaissance ( el, Μακεδονική Αναγέννηση) is a historiographical term used for the blossoming of Byzantine culture in the 9th–11th centuries, under the eponymous Macedonian dynasty (867–1056), following the uphea ...
" of the tenth century. Several fragments of silver-stained window glass have been discovered. Although silver staining was practiced by the Byzantines, silver-stained works were not as ubiquitous in Byzantium as they were to become in late Medieval Europe. However, the widespread use of silver-staining in Byzantium could in part explain the transmission of silver-stain technique from the Arab world to Western Europe.
[Pilosi, Lisa, Whitehouse, David, "Early Islamic and Byzantine Silver Stain," in New Light on Old Glass, ed. by Christopher Entwistle and Liz James, (London: The British Museum, 2013), 329-337.]
References
Sources
* Antonaras, Anastassios, "The Production and Uses of Glass in Byzantine Thessaloniki," in New Light on Old Glass, ed. by Christopher Entwistle and Liz James, (London: The British Museum, 2013), 189-198.
* Francois, Veronique, Spieser, Jean-Michael, "Pottery and Glass in Byzantium," in The Economic History of Byzantium ed. by Angeliki E. Laiou, (Dumberton Oaks, 2002), 593-610.
* Jenkins, Marylin, "Islamic Glass: A Brief History," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series Vol.44 No.2 (Autumn 1986), 1-56.
* Laiou, Angeliki E., The Economic History of Byzantium, (Dumberton Oaks, 2002).
* Lightfoot, Christopher, "Glass Finds at Amorium," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol.59 (2005), 173-181.
* Pentcheva, Bissera V. "The Performative Icon, " The Art Bulletin, vol.88 no.4 (Dec.2006), 631- 655.
* Pilosi, Lisa, Whitehouse, David, "Early Islamic and Byzantine Silver Stain," in New Light on Old Glass, ed. by Christopher Entwistle and Liz James, (London: The British Museum, 2013), 329-337.
* Schibille, Nadine, Meek, Andrew, Benguez, Tobias, Entwistle, Chris, Avisseau-Broustet Mathilde, Da Mota, Henrique, Gratuze, Bernard, "Comprehensive Chemical Characterization of Byzantine Glass Weights," PLoS One Vol.11, no.12 (Dec.2016). e0168289.
* Stern, E. Marianne, Roman Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass 10 BCE-700 CE : Ernesto Wolf Collection, (Ostfildern-Ruit: Haje Cantz,2001).
* Stern, E. Marianne, "Glass Producers in Late Antique and Byzantine Papyri," in New Light on Old Glass, ed. by Christopher Entwistle and Liz James, (London: The British Museum, 2013), 82-88.
External links
* https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/artists-materials-techniques/ceramics-glass/v/ancient-and-byzantine-mosaic-materials
{{Byzantine Empire topics
Glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...
History of glass