page_title: Sasanian glass
section_title: Some considerations about the definition of Sasanian Glass
hierarchical_section_title: Sasanian glass / Some considerations about the definition of Sasanian Glass
caption_attribution_description: English: Persian Glass - Sasanian era, 7th century AD - Photo: Persian Dutch Network Nederlands: Perzisch Glaswerk, Sassanidische tijden, 7e eeuw - Foto: Persian Dutch Network فارسی: شیشه ساسانی - از سده هفتم میلادی - عکس: شبکه ایرانیان هلند
context_page_description: Sasanian Glass is the glassware produced between the 3rd and the 7th centuries AD within the limits of the Sasanian Empire of Persia, namely present-day Northern Iraq, Iran and Central Asia. This is a silica-soda-lime glass production characterized by thick glass-blown vessels relatively sober in decoration, avoiding plain colours in favour of transparency and with vessels worked in one piece without over- elaborate amendments. Thus the decoration usually consists of solid and visual motifs from the mould, with ribbed and deeply cut facets, although other techniques like trailing and applied motifs were practised.
context_section_description: Despite there being a general agreement concerning what Sasanian Glass is, there are no clear criteria to describe it. Therefore, before continuing with a further explanation is necessary to clarify it. Usually it is defined by means of Period, Territory and Style.
  Sasanian glass is frequently referred to with the ambiguous term Pre-Islamic Persian Glass. But some scholars (e.g. Goldstein 2005) consider the Achaemenid (550-330BC), Parthian (247BC-226AD) and Sasanian (224-642AD) productions as Pre-Islamic whereas others (e.g. Meyer 1995) consider only the 7th–8th centuries AD immediately before the Islamic Golden Age and the first Abbasid caliphate. Sasanian Glass is also named Persian Glass, incorporating all the assemblage manufactured in Persia from the 3rd to the 19th centuries AD (Newman 1977).
  The Sasanian Empire spanned a vast area from the Fertile Crescent to the Central Asian steppe, but with periods of expansion and contraction, reaching Damascus, Jerusalem, Egypt, Yemen or Pakistan. Some of the works were produced in the peripheral regions bordering the Empire and others came from beyond but following Sasanian designs. This creates "uncertainties about the precise place of manufacture of many Sasanian creations" (Demange 2007, 9) and confusion among terms since Mesopotamia, for instance, can be at the same time Seleucia (Achaemenid), Ctesiphon (Sasanian) or Baghdad (Islamic).
  Finally, the stylistic criteria can be very tricky due to several reasons. First, there is a considerable difficulty in discerning between the Parthian and Sasanian tradition (Negro Ponzi 1968-69), Byzantine and Sasanian (Goldstein 2005) and Sasanian and Islamic (Whitehouse 2005) to the extent that ‘Sasanian’ glassware, if carefully analysed, becomes Parthian (Negro Ponzi 1972, 216); that Byzantine pieces have many possibilities of being Sasanian (Saldern 1967), or that the same author examining the same specimen can conclude the piece is Sasanian in a first paper and Islamic in a second report (Erdmann 1950 and 1953). Second, the most characteristic method of decoration utilized by Sasanian artisans, the wheel-cut technique (See Figure 2) was not originated at all by them.  There are splendid examples of wheel-cut vessels at least from the 5th century BC among the Achaemenians that are known both in East and West (Goldstein 1980). "Everything wheel-cut is not Sasanian." (Rogers 2005, 24).
caption: Persian glass from Sasanian era, 7th century AD
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