From trash to treasure: the recycling of glass in Roman and Early Medieval period Britain

Thesis

The main aim of this thesis is twofold; first to asses the ability of material studies to identify and quantify recycling in ancient glass, and then to compare the nature and extent of recycling of glass in the first to fourth centuries in Britain, Roman Britain, to the following Early Medieval period, fifth to eighth centuries.

The first section of this thesis, the backbone, is a compilation of published values of glass analysed from English sites, and a comparative database from Europe. This also includes the expansion of the English database with the fresh analysis of glass from the sites of Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and Lyminge, Kent.

The next section is a theoretical discussion of recycling and particularly the re- cycling of ancient glass. This includes both the ramifications of different forms of recycling for artefacts, in terms of traditional archaeological concerns such as trade, deposition and object biography, but more importantly the material studies changes that one might expect to witness from such recycling.

This leads on to the chemistry of glass, and specifically how this can be used to demonstrate that recycling. Setting out and devising the material studies approaches to quantifying and qualifying ancient glass recycling, assessing which techniques are potentially of value. This synthesis and analysis includes both a large amount of legacy data, the database, as well as the small study of new glasses. In particular, the new glasses that will aim to increase the number of post-Roman glasses.

The final portion of the thesis uses the architecture of the previous sections to compare the patterns of recycling across time in Britain, specifically the geographical components. This demonstrates the relationship between geography and trade, and how this changes in England as Roman influence falls and a new power takes Britain.

Authors: Sainsbury, V

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-qxbpk5gzb
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Archaeological Science; Archaeometry; Anglo-Saxon; Glass; England; Lyminge; Analysis; Recycling; Early Medieval; Roman; Britain; Dorchester-on-Thames; Archaeology
• Subjects: Archaeology