This cobalt glass inkwell was recovered during shovel testing in the area of West Circle surrounding the M.S.U. Museum and is likely associated with Williams Hall, which was constructed in 1869 and served as an early residence hall until 1919, when a large fire during winter break rendered it unusable.
The swirling pattern observable across the body of the vessel reflects a post-depositional process known as patination–in which decompositional chemical reactions of the vessel’s surface to soils, water, and other subsurface materials to produce an opalescent sheen–and also indicates that the glass batch was not mixed to the point of consistency, leaving ribbons of concentrated sodium carbonate that patinated more quickly than the remainder of the vessel’s surface.
Background image courtesy of the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections.
CC AttributionCreative Commons Attribution
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