Rhodes 2004 Overview

Rhodian Glassware II: The Hellenistic Glass Workshop of Rhodes
Dr. Pavlos Triantafyllidis

Rhodes has long been acknowledged in the bibliography as a major manufacturing center during the Hellenistic period for consumer goods, such as those transported in the widely spread all over the East Mediterranean Rhodian amphorae, for bronze and marble sculpture works by famous artists, as well as for luxury goods such as glass and gold and silver jewelry. Among these of great significance is the glass-workshop, which has been discovered during rescue excavations in 1965 and 1966 conducted by the 22nd Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and the American specialist Dr Gladys Davidson-Weinberg of Missouri University.

The importance of this unique discovery of the rhodian workshop is highly appraised by the scholars due to its early date, the earlier known such workshop in the Mediterranean, and the fact that preserved evidence about the glass process. and proves that Rhodes was both a glassmaking and glassworking centre. Therefore the study and the full publication of this workshop will contribute immensely to our knowledge about the technology of glass-working and glass-making during the Hellenistic times within the area of the Greek world and the rest of the Mediterranean basin.

The vast quantities of archaeological material recovered during the excavation. with the 14,000 glass objects, the 40,000 glass cullets, the pottery of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. and the 50,000 various small finds, have been under conservation while drawings and photographs of each of the most characteristic ones have been prepared for the separate undergoing studies, due to the kind financial support by the Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications during the years 1999-2001. At the same time the full stratigraphy of the site has been fully studied and a series of various archaeometric analyses of various samples have been emerged and are in their final process by top specialists which will contribute immensely to our knowledge of ancient technology.

A monograph of circa 800 single-spaced pages is under preparation as a first draft, articulated in a text of six chapters (see Table of Contents) by the applicant with the contributions by twenty other specialists (see sample of the Chapter 4.a.iv. The Stamped Amphora Handles), and illustrations, i.e. figures, tables, and diagrams, and plates of both black and white and color photos.

At the current moment the undergoing monograph needs one more year of financial support so as to reach its final editorial stage, with the translation of the various texts into English and the final editing of the text, the drawing and photographing of some of the finds and the digital image processing,. There are still some sections on the pottery and the synthetic chapter to be written and the results of the archaeometric study to be presented.

A hard copy and the digital form of the monograph will be ready for the publisher within a year from the time the grant will be on.