These small examples of ancient art

demonstrate, in one and the same medium,

very different traditions: the classical Graeco-

Roman heritage, the pious Jewish legacy and

the newly fashioned Christian way of life.

During the fourth century CE, it was customary

in Rome to break gold-glass cups and bowls

which the dead had owned in life in order to

imbed the bases of these vessels into the wet

plaster which sealed their burial niches. The

repertoire of subjects on this corpus of gold-

glass vessels is an important source for the

study of late antique art in Rome, and reveals

the co-existence of traditional classical, pagan

beliefs among the early Christians as well as the

Jews of Rome.

Among the stamped glass pendants, revered

religious symbols were applied as charms while

some pendants were probably no more than

mere decorations. All of this is expressed in

small and inexpensive stamped pendants which

enjoyed a wide sphere of circulation in some

parts of the Eastern Mediterranean World and

beyond into areas formerly part of the Roman

Empire during the fourth to fifth centuries CE.