A Roman glass beaker

The documentation below is an illustration of the restoration of a Roman  glass beaker (1st to 4th century) excavated in Syria. It was glued together with shellac, probably by locals who sold it to the present owner. The task was to clean and disassemble then reassemble the cup. During restoration it was discovered that several fragments of glass did not belong to this object. A casting of specially formulated plastic was used to rebuild the missing area. As can be seen on the photo on the right the repair is hardly visible. Such pieces as this one pose great problems to the restorer due to the level of deterioration of the glass.