Interview with Katherine Larson on 'Dig Deeper: Discovering an Ancient Glass Workshop' at the Corning Museum of Glass

By Artemios Oikonomou, Associate Editor for Archaeological Glass

I had the opportunity to interview Dr Katherine Larson, Curator of Ancient Glass at The Corning Museum of Glass. She curated the temporary exhibition entitled Dig Deeper: Discovering an Ancient Glass Workshop. The exhibition opened on May 13, 2023 and will run through January 7, 2024. If you have the chance to be in New York the next few months, and especially if you are working on glass, do not miss this fascinating exhibition in Corning.

KL: Katherine Larson, AO: Artemios Oikonomou

AO: Can you tell us more about the excavation of the glass workshop in Jalame and its significance in glass studies?

KL: Jalame was the first ancient glass workshop deliberately excavated by glass specialists. Petrie had found glass workshops in Egypt, and Gladys Weinberg had studied the medieval workshop at Corinth, but the Corning Museum and University of Missouri team that excavated Jalame in the 1960s had very specific questions they hoped to answer about how glass was made in the ancient world. Robert Brill’s work on Jalame glass was the first to establish that sand from the Belus River and natron from Wadi Natrun in Egypt were in fact the raw ingredients of Roman glass. Weinberg – working with Jennifer Price and Dominick Labino – identified moils archaeologically as an indication of glass workshop waste. She was also the first to note the lack of shear marks on ancient blown glass. The list of what we owe in knowledge to the Jalame project goes on.

AO: What are some of the unique artifacts from Jalame that will be on display in the exhibition, and what can visitors learn from them about the glassmaking process during that time period? What was your basic approach?

KL: We really wanted to focus on the actual “stuff” that came out of the ground and display it in ways that helped visitors understand what they were looking at. One example is pairing vessel fragments found at Jalame with intact, unprovenanced objects from the Corning Museum collection and related vessels found in other excavations in the region. Another example is a display that shows the various waste products found at the site, paired with a series of short videos showing how that debris is generated during glassblowing.

AO: The exhibition includes approximately 75 objects on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Could you highlight a few specific objects that are particularly fascinating or rare, and how they contribute to the narrative of the exhibition?

KL: My favorite object in the entire exhibition is the very end of an iron pontil rod with adhered glass (published in Weinberg 1988, fig. 3-9). It was graciously lent to us by the Israel Museum, where it had been on display, with the loan facilitated by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Because glass workshop tools were largely wood or metal, they rarely survive. This pontil rod probably escaped remelting because of the glass stuck on the end.

AO: I have seen that in this exhibition visitors engage with the artefacts/exhibits. How does the exhibition provide a hands-on experience for visitors?

KL: To help the exhibition be accessible to a wide audience in terms of age and ability, we created a multisensory experience. The glass from Jalame is abundant, so we were able to have it mouted in a way that allows visitors to touch it, making a physical connection to the past. Sound effects of excavation and glassblowing can be heard in the gallery, along with largescale video. We also developed a digital game that replicates the process of excavation and investigation that archaeologists undertake when they find artifacts; visitors can earn badges as they learn more about the object they ‘found’ by talking to different experts.

AO: The exhibition, apart from the archaeological finds, features artwork by Palestinian artist and designer Dima Srouji. Could you elaborate on the collaboration between Srouji and glassblowers in Jaba’, Palestine, and how their work enhances the exhibition?

KL: We were able to acquire several works from Dima Srouji’s Ghosts series, a set of replicas of late antique glass perfume vessels made in ancient Syro-Palestine. They were made by the Twam family, glass artisans who are working to keep their craft alive in Jaba’, in the occupied West Bank. The work is a commentary on the displacement of the glass heritage and people of Palestine. Srouji’s work is often very archaeologically informed, and its themes align with many of those I consider as both an archaeologist and a curator.

AO: The accompanying 36-page comic book about the Jalame glass workshop is an interesting addition. Could you share more about the collaboration between you and comic illustrator John Swogger, and how the comic book enriches the visitor experience? 

KL: Swogger is an archaeological illustrator who has successfully pivoted his illustration skills into creating narrative comics. Typical archaeological illustration, such as appears in final excavation reports, is highly technical and encoded, as well as decontextualized. Swogger and I wanted to bring the ancient workshop, and the archaeologists who studied it, to life, by creating not just up-to-date illustrations of what glass furnaces in the 4th century looked like, but also the people who used them. John’s illustrations are so evocative and colorful, as well as instructional, that it was a natural choice to deploy them in the exhibition space. I’m most pleased that the comic has been recognized for the scholarly work that it represents by glass specialists, while also introducing members of the general public to basic concepts of archaeology and – hopefully! – sparking an appreciation for ancient glass.