Global Glass provides multidisciplinary examination of the cross-cultural consumption of personal adornments, glass bracelets, used by the inhabitants of the European northwest regions during the Late Iron Age to Roman period, c. 250 B.C. – A.D. 200. These artefacts are seamless ring-shaped objects composed of coloured glass decorated with various motifs, patterns and applied coloured designs. The project brings together the evidence from four north-western European countries, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and United Kingdom, to assess how these artefacts were made, used, and deposited on an interregional and local level. By positioning the glass bangles in the context of social, cultural and political developments in the transitional period from Later Iron Age to Roman, the project explains the reason behind massive increase in the numbers of glass adornments, their variability in use and decorative regionality in this period. To do that the project introduces the new pan-European phenomenon termed ‘glass adornments event horizon’.
The main objectives of the projects are thus to (i) ascertain the geographic and chronological development of the ‘glass adornment event horizon’; (ii) explore the various functions and gender-less nature of the glass bangles; (iii) elucidate by experimentation various manufacturing techniques of these artefacts; (iv) by zooming-on on one area, Britain, understand the regional ramification of the event and explore geographic and chronological use, and function of British bangles, understand where the inspiration, skill and raw materials for them come from; and ultimately, (v) understand the transformative role these artefacts played in the formation of inter-European and regional identities in a transitional period when new cultural forms and practices emerged in the European Northwest.
The action concludes with clear image of connectivity and continuity in glass bangle manufacture, use, and deposition in the transitional period from Late Iron Age to Roman period across European Northwest. By bringing the British glass bangles into the discussion of the Continental ones it became possible to observe how regionality and local taste played a role in the changing dynamic of bangles’ development.
