Glass

Glass was made long before the Silk Roads and often used to emulate semi-precious stones. The raw materials were widely available from Japan to Scandanavia, but old glass could also be recycled. It is found in the form of vessels and beads, locally-made and imported, across the Silk Roads. 

Glass had been known in Europe since the second millennium BC, imported from production centres in the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. It started to be made in southern Europe in the mid-first millennium BC under the Roman Empire but grew in importance with the  development of glass-blowing. By the first century AD glass vessels had replaced much clay food and drinkware in Italy. With Christianity, it was also used for window glass in churches and monasteries  [EXH100] . Glass vessels are found in elite burials, indicating that they were valued items. 

After the Romans left Britain, glass was in less plentiful supply and a local glassmaking industry developed. The raw materials were readily available and old glass could also be recycled. The blue glass bowls in the Prittlelwell burial [ EXH122 ] were probably made in England, but in the style of glass from across the Roman Empire. The cobalt blue is a common colouring. 

Although the Vikings also developed a local glass industry, they mainly produced beads. The funnel glass vessels found in many graves in Birka [ EXH132 ] were probably made on the European mainland: they were very popular during the Carolingian period (800–887). 

Japan and Korea both had local glassmaking by the 7th century but most vessels found in tombs had travelled there along the Silk Roads. A 5th-century  grave in Japan contains a similar blue vessel to that of Prittlewell  [ EXH133 ] and a facet-cut clear bowl [ EXH134 ]. Scientific tests have shown that the former was probably made in Syria on the eastern Mediterranean and the latter in Sasanian Iran, possibly in its capital Ctesiphon.  

Such imports are also found in Korean graves, such as the Roman glass cup in the Cheonma grave [ EXH131 ] and a Roman glass ewer [ EXH135 ]  from the southern tumulus of Hwangnam Daechong, another tomb in Gyeongju. 

Among other finds in the Silla graves in Gyeongju were elaborate chestlaces, such as that from Cheonma tomb [ EXH136 ]. This is made of blue glass and gold beads. At first glance the blue beads appear to be lapis lazuli. This is stone mined in the mountains of central Asia—what is now eastern Afghanistan—and was imported long distances from earliest times: it is used, notably, in the mask of Tutankhamun, dating to c.1323 BC. But lapis was rare and, presumably, expensive, and even some of the blue in Tutankhamun’s mask is glass masquerading as lapis. Lapis is also used to decorate accoutrements in elite burials of the steppe. The Silla graves were probably influenced by this aesthetic.  

The use of glass to replicate gemstones is not only found in beads: glass is used in Korea and Japan as a replacement for garnets, sourced in south Asia. This is seen for larger inlays on the Gyerim-ro dagger sheath [image below,  EXH123 ] which are glass, while the smaller ones are garnets: this is similarly seen on several items in the Fujinoki burial [ EXH126 ]. In Britain, blue glass is common,, as in the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasp [image right,  EXH137 ], but the use of red glass is also found on some of the Sutton Hoo pieces. Although over 2500 garnets were used in the Staffordshire Hoard, such as on the cross [ EXH69 ], a pommel cap was repaired with red glass, perhaps suggesting that garnets were either not available or affordable.   

The surrogate garnet and lapis glass was probably made locally, although often from recycled glass. And although glass beads were also made in the Viking world, those made much further afield are also found in Europe. For example, beads in a 5th–-6th century burial in France have been identified through isotopic analysis as being made in south Asia and it is probable that some from graves in England also belong to this group. While the use of glass could be seen as a cost-saving measure in the absence of precious materials, it is clear that it was also something that was desired and traded across the breadth of the Silk Roads in its own right. 

South Asian beads also travelled east: one of the largest hoards is from Yongning Buddhist Temple in Luoyang in central China where 150,000 glass beads were found below the early 6th century stupa. 10,000 beads were also found in Fujinoki tomb [ EXH126 ]. 

The Buddhist context for these is not surprising as glass was a cheaper and more readily available substitute for crystal, one of the seven treasures in Buddhism. It is frequently used for relic vessels, as seen in the relic jar from Tōshōdai-ji (唐招提寺) in Japan [ EXH81 ] and from Seokga stupa (釋迦塔) in Korea [ EXH82 ]. Glass and crystal are also used as relic containers in the Christian tradition, as in the crystal case of the True Cross [ EXH77 ].

Glass was made across the Silk Roads but vessels from the Roman and Sasanian Empires were particularly valued by elites from Japan to Britain. South Asian beads were also prolific Silk Road travellers, easily portable and usable in necklaces and other accoutrements.   

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