If this is confirmed as a Hellenistic piece, then it was one of many such items made as an everyday drinking cup and not as a luxury item. But far away in South China it was rarer and almost certainly considered as both exotic and a luxury: it might never have been used for its original purpose. A possibly analogous situation is seen in the Chinese ceramics exported by sea to Europe from the fourteenth century. These were usually everyday items or pieces made for the export market and were far from being considered luxuries in China. But once they reached Europe they acquired a new and much higher status.91 The status of the glass vessel—as a foreign luxury—might account for its inclusion in the burial, like the silverware ewer and Sasanian glass bowl that were buried with Li Xian (see chapter 5). In his study on the trade of glass beads in Asia, Peter Francis has argued that “the farther from the manufacture one goes, the more a product is apt to be treated as a luxury item.”92 Most burials contained glass only in bead form—not whole vessels—and this tells us something about the status of the buried man: the excavation team concluded he was a member of the elite.
The tomb was one of three excavated from the same small tumulus at Hengzhigang in the northeast of the city of Guangzhou. They were dated to the middle or late Former Han period by their structure, size, and burial goods.93 The broken fragments of the three bowls were discovered in tomb no. 1. This had a burial chamber six meters below the original surface level of the earth and oriented south southeast. The surviving shaft was completely filled with fine sand. There were two gutters on the floor of the chamber used for the sleepers that supported the wooden burial chamber. Only a few blackened traces remained of the coffin.
Most of the goods had been placed in the north and west of the chamber. Among them were seventy-one ceramics, a bronze tripod, three glass bowls, and one glass bi. One of the bowls was placed in the north of the chamber; the other two, along with the bi and a bronze belt hook, were placed next to the coffin. The only other glass found was a green belt hook in tomb no. 2.94
The glass bowl had changed over the two thousand years of burial. It did not decay and disappear in the way of organic material, but its surface and composition were affected by the long period underground, making it look very different from when it was first produced. This so-called weathering is typically seen on buried pieces and is more common on potash glass than on soda-lime. The glass bi found in the same tomb did not survive excavation but disintegrated into dust, perhaps suggesting that the material was severely weathered potash glass. But the type of weathering seen on the bowl is consistent with other soda-lime pieces made in the Levant.
Moisture is the primary cause of deterioration, as it causes the alkali ions to be slowly leached out and replaced with hydrogen ions from the water. This usually occurs within a few years of the burial, and then a new cycle starts, so that the different layers can often be seen. They range in thickness from one to about twenty-five micrometers. Sometimes they protect the glass from further weathering by providing a sort of laminated layer that slows down access of moisture to the glass underneath.95 The presence of moisture is not surprising in a burial in this region and is supported by the fact that no surviving organic materials were found in the tomb and that both the corpse and the wood of the coffin and the tomb chamber had completely decayed. The excavators note the custom of this time of using sea sand to pack the wooden chamber—evidenced by the sand found in the shaft—and suggest that the moisture from the sand caused the wood to decay.
The glass bowl, which started life as a utilitarian object and became an exotic luxury, is now an aesthetic and historical artifact. It continues to be considered an item of value in the Chinese context. This is shown by the fact that, instead of remaining in a local or provincial collection or museum, it was sent to become part of the collections of the National Museum of China in Beijing (formerly the History Museum). As demonstrating one of the links across Eurasia in premodern times it has also acquired significance in a “Silk Road” context and has appeared in several exhibitions and publications—although erroneously labeled as Roman.96 Its new life has just begun and it has many secrets yet to reveal.
As this piece was being made and transported, a new factor came into the equation that was to have an impact on the use and value of glass in China, namely the use of glass in Buddhism.97 This is discussed further in chapter 4.
1. I am indebted to many scholars for this chapter, but especially Julian Henderson of Nottingham University. The work and comments of Cecilia Braghnin and Shen Hsueh-man have also been invaluable. All mistakes, misunderstandings, and omissions are my own.
2. Whitfield (2009: cat. 48). An Jiayao (2004: 58) also described it as Roman.
3. See below, note 76. Conventionally the Roman period begins in 27 BC. Late Hellenistic refers to the period preceding this.
4. Borell (2011).
5. As Henderson points out, “Glassy slags can be produced in virtually any high-temperature environment” (2013: 6).
6. Buck (1982).
7. See Henderson (2013: 5–6) and “Tut’s Gem Hints at Space Impact,” BBC News, July 19, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5196362.stm. Manmade glass is also extensively used in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
8. Hodges (1992: 125); McCarthy (2008: 915). For a discussion of faience and glass, see Henderson (2013: 14–16).
9. Its name in Egyptian means “artificial lapis” (Pagès-Camagna 1998). On the trade, see Tosi (1974).
10. In 1824, the Societé d’Encouragement in France offered a prize of F 6,000 to anyone who could produce a synthetic variety of lapis lazuli pigment at a price not to exceed F 300 per kilo. The prize was not awarded for four years. Finally, in 1828, it was awarded to Jean-Baptiste Guimet. Guimet’s ultramarine was sold for F 400 per pound (lapis lazuli cost between F 3,000 to F 5,000 per pound at that time). For preliminary observations on the economics of lapis as a pigment on the eastern Silk Road, see Whitfield (2016).
11. Moorey (1994).
12. For a history of beads, see Dubin (2009).
13. Henderson (2013: 134).
14. Also glass from Mesopotamia that has been found in northern France.
15. Basu, Basu, and Lele (1974); McCarthy and Vandiver (1991). For example, faience bangles from Gola Dhora are discussed in “Gola Dhoro (Bagasra),” n.d., accessed September 14, 2017, www.harappa.com/goladhoro/faiencemaking.html.
16. Lal (1987). The trade in lapis and in other semiprecious stones such as carnelian is material evidence of these links (During Caspers 1979), but whether there was any transfer of glass technology from Mesopotamia to the Indus valley is more difficult to establish.
17. Henderson (2013: 134–45).
18. Moorey (2001: 4) argues that the technology was developed earlier and refined under the Mitanni.
19. Pulak (1998). For a brief description of the ship and for a general introduction to ships across the Silk Road, see McGrail (2001: 123–25).
20. Bass (1987: 699; Cline 1994: 100).
21. Jackson and Nicholson (2010).
22. Ingram (2005).
23. Pulak (1998); Muhly (2011); Hauptmann, Madding, and Prange (2002).
24. Although there is no firm evidence that it was fused in Europe.
25. Trowbridge (1930: 95–96).
26. Kowatli et al. (2008) and Jennings (2000). For a discussion of the tank furnaces discovered in Beirut, see Henderson (2013: 215–22).
27.