Reflections on Ancient Glass from the Borowski Collection.

• Author: Andrews, Carol A.R.
• Position: Book review

Reflections on Ancient Glass from the Borowski Collection. Edited by ROBERT STEVEN BIANCHI. Mainz: VERLAG PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 2002. Pp. 379, illus. [euro]76.80.

The subject of this splendid new catalogue is a collection of more than 450 pieces of ancient glass acquired during almost sixty years by Elie Borowski and his wife and currently housed in Jerusalem. As might be expected of von Zabern, the quality of the photography is superb: every piece is illustrated in full color and frequently from more than one viewpoint.

After Borowski's account of how the collection came into existence, the succeeding preface by the editor concludes perhaps unfortunately with a personal and over-zealous defense of collecting per se and the scholars who become involved in interpreting pieces so acquired, by attacking what he terms "the dirt archaeologist" and "advocates of aesthetic cleansing." Fortunately, Bianchi has not otherwise allowed these views to color his very valuable and considerable contribution to the catalogue, except in one place (p. 155, n. 1 to EG-40). He and his co-authors, all acknowledged experts in their particular areas of ancient technology, have singly or in conjunction written introductory sections to each chapter as well as the individual entries.

Chapter three by Birgit Schlick-Nolte and Rosemarie Lierke is an outstanding piece of scholarship, which traces the evolution of ancient glass-making, beginning with the related history of metallurgy and the production of glazes and faience, continuing with early records of glass sand ending with a lucid explanation of the techniques and terms employed, aided by drawings and diagrams and references to relevant catalogue entries. Rosemarie Lierke, having herself produced glass by ancient methods, is particularly qualified to comment on the viability of the production techniques proposed. Nevertheless, studies in ancient glass are probably now being given greater prominence than previously, and new material from excavated or well-dated contexts is becoming available on a regular basis, with the result that each new publication is likely to find itself superseded on some point or other in the light of new evidence or research. When true glass was first manufactured in Egypt and whether the raw material was produced in crucibles or pit furnaces are questions, for example, which are by no means yet settled. For a recent and contradictory view to that held by the current authors, see Paul T...