Plate, 375-425. Possibly Syria; possibly Palestine. Blown and tooled. H: 5.3cm; D: 27.5 cm (70.1.39). Pitcher, 300-399. Eastern Mediterranean. Blown, tooled, and applied decoration. H:24 cm; D(max): 10.9 cm (54.1.96). Bowl, 300-399. Possibly Syria; possibly Palestine. Blown glass. H: 7.4 cm; D(rim): 10 cm (72.1.7, Gift of the Israel Department of Antiquities). Beaker, 250–400. Eastern Mediterranean. Blown glass and applied decoration. H: 8.3 cm; D(max): 5 cm. (79.1.176, Gift of The Ruth Bryan Strauss Memorial Foundation) The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.
Plate, 2022.1.43, gift of Robert B. Woodward; Beaker with Solid Base, 2022.1.116, gift of Robert B. Woodward; Bottle with handles, 2022.1.64, gift of Robert B. Woodward; Cosmetic Tubes, 2022.1.37 and 2022.1.40, gift of Robert B. Woodward. The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.
The excavations at Jalame, co-organized by The Corning Museum of Glass and the University of Missouri, Columbia, were conducted between 1963 and 1971. Objects found at the site revealed that the glass workshop at Jalame made both raw glass and finished glass vessels in the same location—a notable exception to the norm. Typically throughout the first millennium CE, raw glass was made in the coastal areas of modern Lebanon and Israel and then was sold and traded throughout the Roman Empire, where glassblowing workshops transformed it into vessels for sale to neighboring people.
Jalame is a significant ancient glass workshop because glassmaking—the act of combining sand and mineral soda in a furnace reaching more than 2000 degrees Fahrenheit—and glassblowing—the act of making vessels and other objects—happened in the same place. Jalame set a standard for understanding what an ancient glass workshop looks like archaeologically. So much of what we now know about ancient glass production is thanks to the excavations at Jalame and the pioneering work of the Corning-Missouri team.
Since the Jalame excavations in the 1960s, archaeologists have discovered dozens of ancient glass workshops in coastal Israel, spanning hundreds of years of history. Some were located in the heart of towns, and others—like Jalame—were in less populated rural areas. Each of these workshops seems to have only operated for a short time before the glass workers packed up and moved a short distance away, perhaps following the expendable fuel sources. The vessels they made were utilitarian tableware—bowls, plates, beakers, pitchers, and perfume containers—for the middle-class residents of nearby towns and villages. Many of these objects broke and were discarded or recycled, but others were buried intact as grave goods. These abundant finds attest to the prominence of glass in the everyday lives of everyday people, who lived in a period of political transition and cultural continuity from the late Roman to early Byzantine empires. - Kate Larson
After the Corning-Missouri team—under the direction of Dr. Gladys Weinberg (1909–2002)—completed excavation of the site in 1971, the project team studied the finds for decades. Dr. Robert Brill (1929–2021), Research Scientist at The Corning Museum of Glass, conducted extensive scientific analysis on glass found at the site and verified that the glass at Jalame was very likely made from sands from the nearby Belus River (now known as the Na’aman River), just as the ancient Roman author Pliny reported almost 2,000 years ago. Weinberg also worked closely with Dominick Labino (1910–1987), a pioneer in the Studio Glass Movement with an affinity for ancient glass, to better understand glassmaking techniques at Jalame.