as well as a mason’s square that was usually metal but could
be wooden, for making corners square. Th e stones would go
to homebuilders or, in the case of marble, to stonemasons
who specialized in carving statues and columns. Statues were
usually painted. Although stonemasons oft en went to con-
struction sites for their work, they also might keep shops that
sold small decorative items or markers for tombs. Although
modern-day people regard the statues as art, the ancient Ro-
mans usually did not. Creating images to decorate buildings
or the interior of the home was considered just a routine part
of the stonemason’s work. Types of stone would by chosen
for diff erent types of work. For instance, hard stone would be
used for building aqueducts and walls intended to bear heavy
weight, whereas soft were preferred for sculptures to decorate
the interiors of room. Marble was oft en used for carving be-
cause it was soft but held its shape well but not for its looks,
because it would be painted.
Woodworkers were probably found in every city, town,
and village, because their products were in great demand.
Th ey seldom cut their own trees. Instead, they purchased
wood brought out of local forests or imported from other
lands. A European Roman woodworker was prosperous if he
could aff ord to purchase wood from Africa; furniture made of
African wood sold for high prices. Woodworkers used tools
probably purchased from blacksmiths: saws, augers for drill-
ing holes, chisels, and hammers. Th ey needed to know how to
shape and fi t metal fastenings for constructing furniture.
Romans made exceptionally fi ne glass. Th ere were im-
portant glassmaking centers throughout the Roman Empire
in Italy, Egypt, Syria, and northern Gaul. Egyptians, in par-
ticular, were famous for the unusual colors of their glass. Th e
town of Aquileia on the Adriatic Sea in Italy was an important
center for manufacturing glass. When the town was sacked
by Huns in 452 c.e., the people fl ed to islands in the lagoon,
founding Venice, where the skills of their craft speople helped
keep glass making alive aft er the fall of Rome.
Roman glass was made from sand, lime, and sodium bi-
carbonate. Th ese would be mixed together in a vessel, prob-
ably made of stone, and heated in a kiln that may have been
a duplicate of one used for heating ceramics. At fi rst, glass
objects were made using three diff erent techniques: One was
to pour molten glass into a mold the way metal was cast. An-
other was to coat a stone or wooden shape with molten glass.
Th e third was to layer not-yet-hardened warm glass in strips,
slowly building up the sides of jugs or other vessels somewhat
the way strips of clay were used to build the sides of a ceramic
pot. Molded glass was oft en carved to depict chariot races or
other exciting scenes.
Th en, in the fi rst century b.c.e., glassmakers in Syria in-
vented glassblowing. Th is involved taking molten glass out of
a furnace on a hollow tube through which the glassmakers
blew air to infl ate the cooling glass. By twisting, lift ing, and
lowering the tube, the blowers could make glass objects of
diff erent shapes. In addition, glassblowing was fast, enabling
glassblowers to manufacture many simple objects, such as
bottles, quickly. Glass factories developed, with many blowers
working together not only to create a variety of glass objects
but also to make enough quantities to mass-market them.
Th us the Roman Empire had a profusion of glass objects for
everyday use that were aff ordable to almost anyone.
Th is ordinary glass for bottles and other household ob-
jects was usually bluish green, but glass could be mixed with
pigments to create other colors. Roman windows were oft en
made out of wooden screens with glass panes in the spaces,
allowing light in but not the weather. Bathhouses sometimes
had large skylights made of glass that allowed sunshine in but
kept out cold winds. Glass jugs came in a variety of curva-
ceous shapes that pleased the eye, and molded glass oft en was
cast to make jars shaped like fruit or animals.THE AMERICAS
BY ANANDA COHEN SUAREZ
Th e ancient inhabitants of the Americas produced craft s
ranging from the utilitarian to the ritual. Craft s of the an-
cient world are generally defi ned as objects hand made of
natural materials such as wood, metal, or plants. Th ey oft en
possessed a dual signifi cance, serving basic human needs as
well as having associations to a cultural belief system. Craft s
were produced in many diff erent cultural, social, and eco-
nomic contexts, from households in rural areas to highly spe-
cialized workshops in large cities. Many craft s, particularly
those of such perishable materials as plant fi bers and wood,
have not survived. Th e unequal preservation level of these
objects in the archaeological record means that secondary
evidence, such as tools associated with craft s manufacture
or painted depictions of craft s, helps to provide information
about them.
Present-day craft production among indigenous com-
munities throughout the Americas off ers critical ethno-
graphic evidence of ancient traditions whose technique and
form have sur v ived t he test of time. Baskets, meta l ornaments
and tools, wooden and bone implements, and other utilitar-
ian goods can be found in all regions of the continent but
with much variation in appearance as well as in cultural sig-
nifi cance. A great deal of cultural interchange existed in the
ancient Americas, increasing in intensity as societies became
sedentary. Th ousands of diff erent cultural groups coexisted
in the vast territory now known as the Americas, each with
their own histories and distinct cultural practices that infl u-
enced the appearance, mode of production, and function of
their particular craft items.
Around 10,000 b.c.e. hunter-gatherers began to populate
North America, Mesoamerica, and South America, traveling
in bands and settling in diff erent locations depending on the
time of year. Th ese were all preceramic cultures that domes-
ticated squash and pumpkin, used to make gourds for trans-
porting water and food. Th e sites of Guila Naquitz in central
Mexico and the Tamaulipas caves in northeastern Mexico
provide some of the earliest surviving evidence of craft pro-294 crafts: The Americas