Late Antique Glass Carving as Cross-Craft

Focusing on the related engraving techniques of openwork and opus sectile carving as evidence, this paper demonstrates that glass production in the Eastern Mediterranean in late Antiquity was an example of cross-craft, involving aspects of specialised collaboration among glass producers. As such, it represents the interdependence required of inter-industry relations in terms not only of resources but fundamentally of skills. Beyond just glass, cold-worked carving in various media suggests relatively large-scale late Roman urban production was more likely defined by a transferrable skill set (in this case carving) as opposed to a material.