Among ancient craft industries few experienced the extraordinary technological advances which today are routinely associated with all industries. Most major technologies (ceramics, metallurgy, etc.), once invented in the Bronze Age or earlier, underwent only modest technological change for the rest of antiquity (i.e. to the close of the Roman period). Glassmaking, also invented in the Bronze Age, was no different. Between 1600 and 50 BC it remained an esoteric craft producing a small number of luxury or near-luxury wares by age-old methods for a prosperous but limited clientele. This situation changed radically, however, at the close of the first century BC when, in the hands of Roman entrepreneurs, new manufacturing techniques (casting, free-blowing, mold-blowing) were adroitly exploited by newly founded factories in Italy and elsewhere. With unusual suddenness this venerable industry was transformed into one mass-producing tablewares, containers, and architectural embellishments for all strata of Roman imperial society. For the first time in history glass became a commonplace in the experience of people everywhere in the civilized world. -- AATA