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Identifying Roman glass

Blue-green vessels, ribbed bowls, and iridescence earned underground.

Roman glass is typically natural blue-green (aqua), full of small seed bubbles, and thin-walled once blowing spread in the 1st century BC. Common finds include ribbed bowl fragments, square bottle pieces (with moulded base designs), delicate unguent flasks, and countless body sherds with graceful curves.

Iridescence — rainbow films flaking from buried glass — is decay, not decoration, and later glass buried in similar soil also iridesces, so it supports rather than proves a Roman date. Form does the proving: fire-rounded rims, folded feet, pontil scars, and the repertoire of shapes.

Handle flaking iridescent surfaces minimally. Record colour against light, wall thickness, and any rim/base/handle features; a drawing of the profile curve helps even for small sherds. Square bottle bases with lettering or patterns deserve careful photography — they can identify a workshop.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on glass

Identifying ancient glass — Iridescence, bubbles, and weathering.

Dating glass wine bottles — From onion to cylinder — bottle shape is a timeline.

Identifying trade and glass beads — Drawn, wound, and chevron beads that travelled the world.

Identifying window glass — Crown bullseyes, cylinder sheets, and painted church fragments.

Identifying vessel glass fragments — Wine glass stems, phials, and the anatomy of broken glassware.

Identifying inkwells, stoppers, and small glass objects — The little glass things that survive whole.

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