Il vetro in epoca romana a Porto Torres: restauro e studio di materiali inediti da contesti cimiteriali.

The objective of this research is to initiate a study campaign on Roman glass forms found in Turris Libisonis, with the aim of enriching the knowledge of a material historically overlooked in comparison to the study of other archaeological artifacts. Roman glass is present in the historic collections of museums in the island’s territory, often acquired through 19th-century antiquarian research and therefore lacking scientific data. The absence of information on the location of the finds is unfortunately common for most glass artifacts in the historic collections of museums, as the aesthetic aspect of these objects was often prioritized. It should not be overlooked that glass is an extremely fragile material, which has significantly hindered studies that have often had to wait for a restoration that never took place. In recent decades, some research has shed new light on these materials, attempting to reorganize and classify them in order to gather new data on these numerous finds. Turris Libisonis also presents significant finds that deserve new, in-depth investigations, and this is the perspective of this study, with the aim of gathering data on the types, manufacturing techniques, dating, and provenance of glass in Porto Torres. To this end, the collections of artifacts exhibited in the Museo Nazionale Antiquarium Turritano and the Museo Nazionale G. A. Sanna, which have already been partially published, were set aside, while the focus was on searching for unpublished forms that are not yet accessible to the public. The study began with the search for as intact glass forms as possible, of various types, housed in the vast deposits of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Sassari and Nuoro. The selected artifacts come from archaeological excavations carried out in various areas of the city of Porto Torres, mainly during emergency interventions for public and private utility. More than 50 glass artifacts were identified, restored and studied, coming from excavations conducted over the last 40 years in the Roman necropolises of Porto Torres. It is precisely in burial contexts that the likelihood of finding complete glass forms increases, as funerary goods are often protected and sealed, avoiding the dispersion that occurs in living contexts. Urban context finds, from which smaller and more difficult-to-classify fragments come, were therefore excluded. The artifacts were studied from different perspectives and at various levels: by context, by deposition and grave goods, by type and form, and were also analyzed with diagnostic tools to investigate their composition and coloration. The result aims to create a catalog of new unpublished forms, which does not in any way claim to be complete and exhaustive, but which could serve as a scientific basis to be integrated with future research. Thus, the goal was to add new pieces to the knowledge of Roman glass art and its trade routes, in order to enrich the historical framework of this fundamental phase for the city of Porto Torres