The Ballidon Experiment

The Ballidon experiment was established by Sheffield based glass scientists and archaeologists in 1970. Its purpose was to compare the corrosion of modern and ancient glasses and it was intended to run for over 500 years. The experiment has since been expanded to study glasses of a type used, in the UK and other countries, to immobilize radioactive wastes.

In this short film, researchers from the Department of Archaeology and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering unearth the latest set of glass samples from the Ballidon burial mound. These samples will be studied to see what their alteration can tell us about the long term durability of glasses designed to keep radioactive elements locked away for tens of thousands of years.