Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)

Articles

THE PRODUCTION OF PRISMATIC GLASS BOTTLES

IN ROMAN APULUM

SZILAMÉR PÉTER PÁNCZÉL

Mures County Museum, Tärgu Mures, RO

During rescue excavations from 1911-1913 large parts of a Roman insula placed in the workshop area of Colonia Aurelia Apulense has been unearthed. Besides the evidence related to pottery production and bone working, large concentration of moulds for the production of prismatic glass bottles came to light. Most of them have been originally published as ceiling decorations but some of them remained unpublished.1

Keywords: glass-working, Roman, Apulum, moulds, prismatic bottles

The urban sites of Roman Dacia (Fig. 1) are relatively rich in finds related to glass-working, but except Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Samizegetusa, where a tank furnace used for the production of primary glass has been discovered in 2007 (Bäestean-Höpken 2009; Bäestean 2009, 32-34), there is no clear evidence yet for glass production.

1 We would like to express our deepest gratitude to Dr. Vasile Moga, Anca Timofan and Dan Anghel for helping us identifying the moulds in the collections of the National Museum of Unification from Alba Iulia, and we would like also to thank Ünige Bencze, Katalin Sidó and Manuel Fiedler for the corrections made on the text.

MARISIA XXXI, p. 175-187