AACG News
Richard Whiteley Challenges Roman Glass Theory
Contemporary glass sculptor, who is an associate professor at the Australian National University, is challenging the long-held theory that ancient Roman cameo glass was blown. He says the British Museum has wrongly classified it, and he presented his new evidence at a historical glassworks conference at the British Museum in early November. Whiteley believes archaeologists, historians 
and museum curators have for hundreds of years incorrectly classified Roman cameo glass from the period of around 30BC-50AD as blown glass - including the British Museum's most famous example; the Portland Vase. He says it is instead pate de verre. His research was based in part by examining a fragment of Roman cameo glass from the ANU Classics Department under a Computed Tomography scanner at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. Click here to read a full article about this discovery.
| Posted 17 Nov 07
