The field of first-millennium glass studies is currently a dynamic one and the present volume, edited by three of the leading researchers in the field, is a very welcome summary of recent developments. The volume is the result of a conference held in York in 2011 and contains twenty papers, including work co-authored by the editors. The geographical range covers Britain and Europe, the Middle and Near East, and encompasses studies of the production, supply and consumption of glass. The papers in the volume can be grouped in various ways (a reflection of their inter-related themes). If ordered regionally there is a British, a European and an Eastern grouping presented, broadly, in that order.

The ‘British grouping’ has four papers. Jackson and Foster examine, ‘The last Roman glass in Britain; recycling at the periphery of the Empire’. Some groups of glasses are found to have no evidence of recycling whilst others — notably high iron-manganese and titanium glass (HIMT) and lightly tinted colourless glasses — show such evidence. The possible reasons for these groupings are discussed and it is concluded that the Britons ‘were making and consuming glass vessels in a very different manner to other surrounding regions’ (13). Peake and Freestone consider opaque yellow glass from the early medieval period, concluding that the glass was made in a two-stage process and has similarities with glass in Europe. It is not yet clear whether the lead-tin yellow represents continuity from Celtic times or a new technology from the south or east (20). Broadley examines the vessel assemblage from the important Anglo-Saxon site of West Heslerton in North Yorkshire, whilst Paynter, the late Sarah Jennings and Price look at glassworking from Whitby Abbey, or, more precisely, the Anglian settlement nearby.

In the European group, Grünewald and Hartmann examine glass workshops in northern Gaul and the Rhineland during the first millennium a.d. as an indication of changing land use. Their work is based around distribution mapping supplemented by chemical analyses (undertaken by Susanne Greiff alongside Hartmann). They provide a useful summary of identified workshops along with their dating of them, although space does not permit them a full discussion of changing land use. Da Cruz examines Campanulate bowls from Gallaecia from the end of the fourth to the middle of the sixth century whose regional style is believed to indicate local production, though the author is careful to note that not all such vessels were local products. Walker's paper deals with an important collection of late Roman gold-glass assembled by Charles Willes Wilshere (1814–1906), and now in the Ashmolean Museum. The gold-glass dates to the fourth century, and Walker notes that it was probably the preserve of middle-ranking individuals of various religious beliefs and that, although the pieces in the collection are not provenanced, they belong to an ‘underground home in the catacombs’ (72). The late David Whitehouse discusses the ‘proto-history’ of Venetian glassmaking looking at the ‘continuity of glassmaking in the Veneto between Roman times and the Renaissance’ (73). He notes that analyses of glasses from the ninth to thirteenth century from the Venetian Lagoon and nearby show one group with natron, the other with plant ashes. Natron is used up to the twelfth century and suggests re-cycling of earlier glass, although it is possible that natron was available from Egypt until the ninth century. Leljak's paper concerns late Roman glass from South Pannonia (modern northern Croatia), an area which has hitherto been under-researched and presents evidence of two furnaces.

Looking further east, Rehren and Cholakova examine glass from Dichin in northern Bulgaria where the ‘compositional preferences’ (93) of glass finds can be examined on a well-stratified site. Antonaras examines an early Christian glass workshop from Thessaloniki, Greece, which operated between the sixth and seventh centuries. Its location within a built-up area is contrary to Roman law and is another example of archaeology providing a rather different picture of life than might be obtained were texts taken at face value. Glass from the Byzantine palace at Ephesus, Turkey, is examined by Fünfschilling, while early Byzantine glass from Heliopolis/Baalbek is considered by Hamel and Greiff. They conclude that ‘the glass vessels are comparable to most other contemporary sites in the eastern Mediterranean’ (158) with the majority of the glassware at all periods of the site being used for drinking. Greiff co-authors a further paper, this time with Keller, looking at changes in glass supply in southern Jordan in the later first millennium. This paper takes a compositional approach and finds that all major compositional groups known for the first millennium were identified with the exception of HIMT glass; the reason for this is not clear, though it may be that this type is more common in the western Mediterranean and in Europe.

The editors of this volume rightly note the need for studies of Islamic and Byzantine glass to be unified to give a more coherent overall picture and the paper by Keller in this volume goes some way towards that by examining continuity and change in Byzantine and early Islamic glass from Aswan and Elephantine in Egypt. Nenna's paper on ‘High iron-manganese and titanium glass’ examines the yellowish-green to olive-coloured glass of the fourth to seventh centuries a.d. which is made first in northern Sinai from the fourth century and subsequently in Egypt. James considers whether Byzantine glass mosaics were the successors of Rome, concluding that ‘Byzantine wall mosaics … grew out of Roman practices and Roman glass technologies’ (134). The final paper in the volume, by Simpson, provides an overview of Sasanian glass. The glass had its own range of forms, fabrics and manufacturing characteristics which distinguish it as a local industry, probably with its origins in Mesopotamia. There is evidence of some Roman influence during the fourth century, as well as of differences in the circulation of glass within the Sasanian empire. Sasanian glass ultimately influenced early Islamic glass production.

Overall this volume represents an interesting overview of research at the time of its publication. There is not space in this review to do justice to the careful integration of compositional, typological and technological data in many of these papers, but this approach is yielding new and exciting data and providing a much more interesting and nuanced view of glass production in the later first millennium than would have been possible only a decade or so ago. The editors have done an excellent job of bringing together a diverse range of themes and arranging them in a coherent and useful volume supported by illustrations and making use of colour where necessary.