2000-year-old blue-based guinea Roman glass cup

[bumblebee]

From the City Museum of Ljubljana.

[Jeff54]

That link is broken so I hunted it down: 

Cup from Emona. A glass cup was discovered in one of the graves in a cemetery near the Roman castrum (now Ljubljana, Slovenia). It was made of glass in the millefiori technique (an Italian term meaning a thousand flowers). It is a method of obtaining multi-coloured glass, which consists in combining glass paste (in the form of tubes) into decorative patterns, cutting it into slices and then melting it into the surface of the vessel.

Everything is done “hot”. Items made in this technique were luxury goods and were used by Roman patricians.

Dated to the 1st century CE.

Cup from Emona « IMPERIUM ROMANUM

[Ric]

Thanks for fixing that up, @Jeff54. And thanks for bringing it to our attention, @bumblebee.  This is an amazing piece of glassware. I would think it has to be the earliest example of millefiori on record. It's hard to imagine that it was made so long ago. And is that some sort of metal embellishment, like a hook maybe? It's truly remarkable.

[akroorka]

1 hour ago, Ric said:

It's truly remarkable.

No doubt--very nice--I wonder if the Romans made marbles like this???

Marble--On!!

[Alan]

12 minutes ago, akroorka said:

No doubt--very nice--I wonder if the Romans made marbles like this???

Marble--On!!

Frit technique was basic at the beginning of glass-making.  It simply small broken pieces of glass, which were obviously plentiful.

[Shamrock Marbles]

2 hours ago, Alan said:

Frit technique was basic at the beginning of glass-making.  It simply small broken pieces of glass, which were obviously plentiful.

^^^This.^^^

And still today, a standard technique for glass decoration.

Sign up for any weekend glass class and they’ll have you rolling a clear gather in glass frit on your first object.

[Fire1981]

This is so off the charts! Many thanks for sharing all of this with us ! 🔥

RAR