The late antique glass workshop in the area of the villa rustica HA 488 – preliminary results

This paper was presented at the YRA seminar series in October 2026.

Following the designation of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Cologne) as the capital of Lower Germania, the hinterland of Cologne, particularly during the 1st and 2nd centuries, was heavily settled and used for agriculture. However, this led to an abrupt end with the imperial crises of the 3rd century, resulting in conversion, downsizing or abandonment of the rural estates. With the gradual stabilisation and restructuring of the Roman Empire at the beginning of Late Antiquity, the former, now ruinous sites were reused or repurposed, and were settled by craftsmen who ran workshops. In the case of the area now occupied by the Hambach opencast lignite mine in the hinterland of Cologne, these were primarily glass craftsmen who set up their glass workshops in several abandoned villae rusticae. These are being archaeologically documented in the run-up to lignite extraction. Numerous studies have already addressed questions concerning the production of raw glass and the use of Roman glass types, and it has already been established that the so-called Hambach glass workshops were, without exception, secondary operations. However, questions remain regarding the precise chronological classification of the glass types, which may shed light on trade relations, resource management and the organisation of the workshops. Therefore, the focus on the PhD Project is the investigation of a villa rustica, the so-called HA 488, which, during its late antique phase of subsequent use, is to be examined archaeologically and archaeometrically using EPMA and ICP-MS analysis and compared with samples from well-dated grave finds.

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