Sculpture re-creates optical effects of the Lycurgus Cup

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   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorResearchers at the University of Sheffield have re-created the sixteen-hundred-year-old glass recipe behind the Lycurgus Cup, Ars Technica reports.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentThe cup is a fourth-century Roman piece in the British Museum, and it changes color depending on how the light hits it.

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   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorThe team put gold and silver particles into the glass, each one a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentSo they got the effect back into a new sculpture. A glass artist who won Netflix's Blown Away made it for the university.

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   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorPrevious attempts had, in the technician's words, limited success. Sixteen hundred years of limited success is a very patient department.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentSixteen centuries of prototyping. They tried different furnaces, different oxygen levels, and at one point they added sugar.

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   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorSugar. I assume the lab notes read, quote, we tried everything in the kitchen, end quote.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentA professor at UCL says the color depended on furnace conditions and the object's position, so the Romans may have relied partly on chance.

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   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorWhich means the Romans had a signature finish, and it showed up when it felt like it.

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    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentThey'd call that a good furnace day.