History shines through the glass
“All glass is beautiful,” Belgian researcher Patrick Degryse said, gently turning a delicate, Roman-era vessel, its bluish sheen glowing under the fluorescent lights of the Semitic Museum’s basement collections. Degryse, a research professor from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, was on one of his twice-yearly pilgrimages to Harvard to examine the Semitic Museum’s archaeological collections. Degryse is one of several international researchers investigating the properties of ancient glass and other materials to understand more about where and how they were manufactured and what the background says about their makers. Together with Katherine Eremin, the Patricia Cornwall Conservation Scientist at the Harvard Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Degryse is examining Roman-era glass to reconstruct trade patterns, looking at associated collections at the museums, which hold items of an artistic nature. He is also meeting with Eremin to discuss progress on a project to investigate glass from the ancient Mesopotamian city of...