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Stop 130 – Family Tour – Morgan Cup [Narrator]: Do you see that small blue and
white cup? [Kid 2]: It looks like it’s just the right
size to fit into my hand. [Narrator]: Well, that little cup is the world’s
oldest piece of perfectly preserved cameo glass.
[Kid 1]: I’ve heard of a cameo necklace, but what is cameo glass?
[Narrator]: Not long after the ancient Roman’s discovered glass blowing, they learned how
to take a single-colored glass object and cover it with one or more different colors
of glass. When some of the top layer of glass is cut away, it leaves a design or decoration
that stands out from the bottom layer of glass. That’s called cameo glass.
[Kid 1]: Is it so special because it isn’t broken?
[David Whitehouse]: “Well, clearly it’s been looked after. (It’s immensely precious
now because it’s so rare, but) It would certainly have been looked after in Roman
times because it would probably have been a family heirloom. Unless it had been put
in the tomb of an important person, and perhaps that’s why it survived unbroken, in the
ground.”
[Kid 2]: Do you know who discovered it?
[David]: “I don't know who found it. I know where it was found. It was found in Turkey.
And then it passed into the collection of the banker, J. P. Morgan, which is why we
call it the Morgan cup.
[Kid 2]: What fun is it to just go out and buy it? Maybe I’ll become an archeologist
so I can hunt for a treasure like this. Then I’ll name it after myself!
[Narrator]: The figures on this cup tell a story. And if you looked around the whole
cup, you’d see a tree, a donkey with a saddle, and a woman carrying a pitcher in one hand
and a tray in the other. Someone else is tying up a curtain to the top of a column. What
kind of story would you tell your friends after looking at this cup?
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