Excavations in the upper Walbrook valley, in a marginal area in the north-west of the Roman city, recovered over 70kg of broken vessel glass and production waste from a nearby workshop, giving new insights into the workings of the glass industry and its craftsmen. The area was developed in the early 2nd century AD, with evidence of domestic buildings and property boundaries. Two later buildings constructed in the mid 2nd century AD may have been associated with the glass-working industry. The disposal of a huge amount of glass-working waste in the later 2nd century signals the demise of the workshop, with the area reverting to open land by the 3rd century AD. The comprehensive nature of the glass-working waste has made it possible to study the various processes - from the preparation of the raw materials in the form of cullet, broken vessel and window glass, to the blowing and finishing of the vessel. All the glass originated ultimately in the eastern Mediterranean, some of it arriving as raw glass chunks, which was supplemented by cullet collected locally for recycling. A review of the current evidence for glass working in London also examines the implications for the organisation of the industry.

Islamic glass and its craftsmanship in the Medieval period are known almost exclusively from Middle Eastern literature. The study of the structures of the workshop and the very rich glass assemblage from Sabra al-Mansuriya (Kairouan), the Fatimid capital founded in 947/948 and destroyed in 1057, proves that Ifriqiya followed the technological evolutions of glass craftsmanship. An examination of the furnaces and the various artefacts discovered highlights the double vocation of a palatial factory: to produce glass and glazed ceramics. From this particular workshop, installed in the wing of a palace, we found everyday glassware as well as more luxurious types, some with very specific forms, others reproducing models known throughout the Islamic world. These productions are local and imported - distinguished through morphological and chemical analyzes - and form the basis of a first typology of glass used in Ifriqiya from the 10th to 11th century. Architectural glass, partly made on site, is also abundant. The crown-glass of different colours, used whole or in small fragments, adorned the openwork panel walls with various carvings. The windows and their glass offered a rich polychrome and a complex decorative syntax, reflecting significant technical mastery and the desire to display economic and political power.