Sherd of painted glass

Roman Britain, 2nd or 3rd century AD
From Catterick, North Yorkshire

Cups made from thin, colourless glass with delicately painted decoration were luxury items. This small fragment shows part of a male figure with a fawn-skin (nebris) and a staff, perhaps a thyrsus, the staff carried by Bacchus and his attendants. The figure could represent Bacchus himself or a satyr taking part in his rites.