A RED OPAQUE GLASS FROM SARDIS AND SOME THOUGHTS ON RED OPAQUES IN GENERAL

Abstract

HE PIECE of red opaque cullet which prompted the writing of this article was recovered from a room belonging to a series of Lydian domestic buildings excavated at Sardis between 1982 and 1986. These houses are located near the foot of an enormous building, the Colos­ sal Lydian Structure, presumed to be a fortifica­ tion. Both the houses and the Structure were de­ stroyed, apparently deliberately, and brick from the upper part of the Structure was dumped over the ruins of the houses, thus preserving their contents more or less intact. Pottery from the floors of the houses and from beneath the fallen brick (including two Attic black figure cups, Corinthian aryballoi, and local pottery) as well as a radiocarbon date suggest that the destruction occurred about 550 B.C., probably during the capture of the city by Cyrus the Great between 547 and 542 B.C. l Most of the rooms excavated so far are domestic in character, containing hearths, kitchen pottery, loom weights, and other household artifacts. One room, however, contained about 4.8 kg of the red glass cullet discussed here, as well as 0.5 kg of trans­ parent yellow-brown cullet, a few finished glass ob­ jects such as melon beads made of segments of different colored glasses, and tools including an iron saw and tweezers. Unlike the purely domestic areas,