Robert Brill is an American archaeologist, best known for his work on the chemical analysis of ancient glass. Born in the US in 1929, Brill attended West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, before going on to study for his B.S. degree at Upsala College (Brill 1993a, Brill 2006, Getty Conservation Institute 2009). Having completed his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Rutgers University in 1954, Brill returned to Upsala College to teach chemistry. In 1960, he joined the staff of the Corning Museum of Glass as their second research scientist.
Throughout his career at Corning, where a four-year directorship punctuated his time as a research scientist, Brill was a forerunner in the scientific investigation of glass, glazes and colorants, developing and challenging the usefulness of emerging techniques. His pioneering work with the application of lead and oxygen isotope analysis in archaeology led him occasionally to add the investigation of metal objects to his portfolio so that, together, his published works number more than 160 (Brill and Wampler 1967). Perhaps the most famous of these is his Chemical Analyses of Early Glass, a sum of his 39 years of work and now a seminal reference guide in the field (Brill 1999).
Since 1982, Brill has served on the International Commission on Glass. Within this, he founded TC17, the technical committee for the Archaeometry of Glass, which lists among its aims the ‘promotion of collaboration among glass specialists in widely separated countries’ and the stimulation and encouragement of glass scientists ‘in developing countries’ (Archaeometry of Glass 2005). His internationalism is aptly demonstrated by his study of glasses from around the world, with his attentions most recently being focused on those from the Silk Road. It seems he was attracted by the lack of previous study and the need for further development in the field. Seeing a disparity between contemporary knowledge of glasses from the western world and those from East Asia, Brill was keen to add insight to a hitherto unexploited field and, as such, has gone on to contribute a great deal to Silk Road studies (Brill 1993b).