Dig Deeper Hot Glass Demonstration | Katherine Larson

Join the Hot Glass Team as they demonstrate ancient glassblowing techniques.
As they work, Katherine Larson, curator of ancient glass, and curator of the exhibition, Dig Deeper: Discovering an Ancient Glass Workshop, offers insights into the processes of ancient glassblowing and glassmaking.
Dig Deeper: Discovering an Ancient Glass Workshop will be open May 13, 2023 through January 7, 2024.
Kate's Bio: people.cmog.org/bio/katherine...
Dig Deeper Exhibition!: whatson.cmog.org/exhibitions-...

[@paulinemegson8519]

Many regions have their own glass colour, due to metallic impurities in their supplies without any intervention on the part of the glassmaker. The Romans developed many recipes for coloured glass tho they weren’t the first to create it, and they were building on others discoveries, such as in Egypt. The Roman’s were very fond of blue going on the pieces found today. But tbh, they coloured their glass the same way we do today, with metallic salts, tho ofc they didn’t understand how it worked. They knew it did tho. It probably started by accident, someone noticing that glass in contact with certain metals or stones went different colours, and then ofc people started experimenting lol

[@doninis1354]

Awsome...just awsome! I am going to Venice in a couple weeks. I am so excited to see the glass museum and glass blower, I am doing glass blowing myself, forfilling a big dream since I am 13.

[@corningmuseumofglass]

So cool!

[@richardjones4080]

Do we know how they developed different colours back in those days if indeed it was possible?

[@davidhill1183]

Knowing how to mine and refine all the different oxides that they needed to add in order to make the glass batch recipes for all the different colours had been worked out and refined by earlier craftspeoples like the Ancient Egyptians and others, several generations before the Romans came along (with their really big innovation - blowing). The chemistry of some of this information has even survived on clay tablets. The Romans (in the early C1 CE) built upon the science and knowledge that was already in place as far as glassmaking was concerned. They knew that a tiny amount of cobalt oxide gave that rich blue, that manganese gave the purples, and antimony was one ingredient to obtain an opaque white, and so on.

[@Mooba2]

How did they anneal the glass?