ABSTRACT
The glass fragment was one of many found in the vicinity of Rome; some scholars have surmised that there must have been one or more gold glass workshops in the area, given the frequency with which they turn up. As it turns out, this particular fragment is one of only two Jewish gold glasses with a provenance. The Jewish gold glass with a recorded find spot was found in the Basilla, or the Sant Ermete catacomb in Rome—an early Christian martyr shrine and burial site. As syncretism has receded from its use as an unproblematic way to talk about the varieties of religious expression, hybridity has arisen to take its place. Hybridity suggests a process that is both inevitable and creative, indeed the only process by which subcultures flourish and grow. Material culture is more likely to describe things as they are, or at least to have fewer layers of persuasion and argument built in.
