My girlfriend and I have been digging a series of dumps in about a 100 yard span from each other. In early spring, I dug a small carnelian intaglio glass from one of the dumps. Not thinking we'd ever find another, my girlfriend found a cache of about 15 in another one of the dumps about 2 weeks ago. Last week in another dump she found about 20 more. Yesterday we revisited the dump where she found 15, and I found one - the green cameo with the mans head - looks like a roman soldier. For reference, intaglio glass is where the image is cut away from the surface of the glass. Here is a definition from the web "Sometimes called "hollow relief" intaglio cutting was done with engraving wheels as long ago as Roman times, and was widely used in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries." Cameo glass is also considered intaglio, but instead of cutting away the image, the background is cut away - you can think of it as embossing vs de-bossing. The cameo's in this group are all pressed glass, where as the intaglio's are mostly cut into carnelian (the orange ones), which is a type of quartz. One is actually a cameo cut into tigers eye. There are also a couple of blank stones on the bottom of the group, the far left being a beautiful piece of tigers eye. Also in the bunch are some jewelry pieces plucked from the same dirt - a pendant which I dug yesterday, a ring, watch fob and locket. The dumps range in age from 1880 to 1930's, and I believe the jewels and jewelry are probably late 1890's to early 1900's. Gotta love dumps!
Richard
Richard
