UK technician cracks secret of 1,600-year-old Roman glass that eerily changes color from green to red
At the University of Sheffield, Dr Lisa Hollands has finally cracked the secret of the 1,600‑year‑old Lycurgus Cup, reproducing its dramatic shift from jade green to ruby red.
The ancient cup, one of only about 40 surviving Roman glass cage cups, owes its chameleon effect to nanoscopic layers of gold and silver that scatter light differently. Hollands, drawing on decades of hands‑on experience and modern analytical tools, experimented with furnaces, oxygen levels and even sugar to perfect a formula that embeds the right amount of gold‑silver nanoparticles in a glass matrix.
To celebrate the breakthrough, glass artist Elliot Walker, known from the TV series Blown Away, has been commissioned to fashion a contemporary sculpture from the new material. The piece will debut at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery during the Festival of the Mind and later join the permanent collection at the university’s Turner Museum of Glass.
The project not only revives a lost Roman technique but also opens fresh possibilities for artists and scientists exploring the intersection of ancient craft and modern photonics.