Judged by their titles these two books could be seen as having different markets in mind. Glass of the Roman World (henceforth GRW) is a title that promises a synthetic overview. The second volume, on the new finds from the Roman town and military site of Augst in Switzerland, would at first sight seem to be the sort of very specialist volume that only a handful of glass specialists would need on their shelves. This, as will be explained, is very far from being the case.

GRW is a festschrift in honour of our Fellow Jennifer Price. It is a collection of eighteen essays by the leading scholars in the field from Britain and beyond. The roll call of the authors is a testament to the esteem with which she and her work are regarded within the world of Roman glass scholarship. As with all festschrifts, the authors have sought to write on topics that they feel will interest the dedicatee and build on her work. Fortunately, these topics and her work are so various that this has resulted in a wide-reaching survey of many aspects of glass research.

The book is divided into three sections. Seven essays look at production and technology, six provide studies of particular vessel forms, and the other essays look at aspects of glass use in such items as windows and jewellery. Where and how glass was made in the Roman world is a topic about which there are many more questions than there are answers. Hardly any primary glass-making sites have been recovered, and so Marie-Dominique Nenna’s paper on the discoveries of possible second-century ad primary furnaces in the Wadi Natrun (Egypt) is of considerable interest. Ian Freestone and Colleen Stapleton’s paper on the composition, technology and production of the coloured glasses used in the early Roman mosaic vessels is another valuable paper, presenting original research on a neglected topic. Given Professor Price’s longstanding interest in the mould-blown vessels of the first century ad, it is not surprising to find that two of the papers in the second part focus on the topic. One of these is a useful survey, including new data, of the sports cups and mythological beakers from Gallia Narbonensis in the south of France by Souen Fontaine and Danièle Foy. Of considerable importance is the paper by Martine Newby Haspeslaugh on the Roman Dionysiac cameo glass vessel that surfaced briefly on the art market in 2009. This vessel, similar in form and size to the Portland Vase in the British Museum, has now disappeared again. The article is likely to remain the only detailed and illustrated description we have of it.Footnote ¹ In the third section, Heidi Amrein’s study of wooden glazing bars from Vindonissa and Sylvia Fünfschilling’s study of the reuse of broken vessel glass fragments as tools and other objects stand out. These are papers that are likely to be cited often in the future as starting points for discussions of these neglected aspects of glass use.

This has been to cherry-pick a handful of the essays. There is much of interest elsewhere as well, but the reader does need to be aware that, though the book was published in 2015, many of the essays were clearly several years old by then. This volume does not reflect advances of the last half-decade or so. It started life as the proceedings of a conference to celebrate the retirement of Professor Price in 2006. Anyone who has been involved in publishing such a conference will be aware that there are normally problems in assembling the papers for publication. Some authors were clearly prompt. John Shepherd’s gazetteer of the glass-working sites in Roman London falls into this category. This very useful summary reflects the state of affairs in 2007, which, given the speed of redevelopment in London and the amount of excavation carried out since then, means that it is now very out of date. Other authors, judging from the dates of the references cited, were probably writing in about 2010–11. Another category was either submitted very late or took the opportunity to update the papers in about 2014. It would have been helpful if the dates of writing or revision had been clearly stated.

This delay in publication makes explicable some rather curious statements. Two authors (our Fellow the late David Whitehouse and Daniel Keller) lament the lack of publication of the vessel glass from Pompeii. This is a little unfair to Lucia Scatozza Höricht, who four years ago published all the glass that is stored on site (Scatozza Höricht Reference Scatozza Höricht2012): ie most of that which has been found since the mid-nineteenth century. The Whitehouse and Keller essays were clearly written before 2012. The delay also means that the results of the ARCHGLASS project studying likely sand sources for Roman glass are not fully assimilated into various essays where they would have been useful (Degryse Reference Degryse2014 and earlier journal articles cited there). This is unfortunate, since the project has widened our understanding of the industry. However, with the proviso that GRW is thought of as a book presenting the state of Roman glass scholarship several years before 2015, it can be warmly recommended.

The Augst report builds on the earlier publication of the glass found in the city before 1981 (Rütti Reference Rütti1991). That volume has become a standard reference for people working with Roman glass from the western Empire. Since 1981 about 20,000 more fragments have been found. What makes this new publication so useful and different from the first one is that it has been structured in such a way that it can be used as a manual from which to learn how to identify and study a glass assemblage. While there are regional variations in vessel forms, most of the material presented here will be relevant to people working in the other north-western provinces, and much of it to those working in the south-western ones as well.

The book is copiously illustrated with clear line drawings and colour photographs that allow even a novice to see what is meant by the technical terms used to describe such phenomena as rim and base finishes, colour and so on. Understanding these is the key to being able to identify and date Roman glass vessels, and this is an extremely useful resource to have available. The illustrations have very full captions presented in both German and English, making them accessible to people who do not speak German. Forms are illustrated both as the fragments normally encountered and as complete examples, which again will be very helpful to novices. As well as the coverage of the forms, there are considerations of manufacturing debris, how the vessels were made and decorated, how to distinguish between Roman and modern glass fragments (not always easy!) and how to date them. Useful closed, dated groups are described and illustrated, and an attempt to compare the use of vessel glass at Augst to other sites in Switzerland is made. Volume 1 concludes with a full description of all the types found with their dating both at Augst and elsewhere, their distribution and references to other useful works which discuss each form. The second volume presents the detailed catalogue and illustrations. As is normal for an Augst publication, the catalogue very helpfully includes information about the date of the context in which a piece has been found, derived from the other material in it.

This book cannot be praised too highly, and Sylvia Fünfschilling and her colleagues are to be commended in having had the vision to publish this body of material in a way that is useful not only to the most specialised glass scholar, but also to people who know nothing about the subject but would like to.