Analyses of Colourless Roman Glass from Binchester, County Durham
Author(s): Sarah Paynter
Forty samples of Roman colourless glass tableware from Binchester, dating from the 1st to mid-3rd centuries AD, were analysed using ICP spectrometry. Parallels were sought amongst data gathered in similar studies of Roman glass from Colchester and Lincoln (Mortimer and Baxter, 1996; Heyworth et al, 1990). Some samples from the Colchester, Lincoln and Binchester groups were re-analysed using an energy dispersive spectrometer attached to a scanning electron microscope (SEM-EDS) and this established that the analytical variables within each set of ICP results differed slightly. The SEM-EDS data was used to compensate for these differences so that the ICP results could be compared. The compositions of the glass samples from all three sites were broadly similar Higher concentrations of lead were found in certain types of 1st to 2nd century wares from all three sites. In contrast none of the mid-2nd to 3rd century wares contained in excess of 300ppm of lead. Samples from the same types of ware were often found to have more closely comparable compositions and a number of samples, particularly within the wheel-cut vessel and facet-cut vessel groups, were found to have distinctive compositions. The glass from Binchester, Colchester and Lincoln was compositionally distinct from the colourless Roman glass common in the Mediterranean region in the mid- to late-first millennium AD. However there were chemical similarities between some of the samples, with a green tinge, and the dark green HIMT glass seen from the 4th century onwards, the origins of which are unknown.
- Report Number:
- 21/2004
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 23
- Keywords:
- Glass Roman
