Marieke van Winkelhoff is a RMA-student ‘Transformation of the Roman World’ at the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden and student-assistant in the Rural Riches project. She is currently writing her master thesis about the role of glass vessels in the Merovingian burial rite. In this study, it will be attempted to understand the value systems surrounding glass vessels, and how these relate to the material properties of glass. It is hypothesized that context-dependent values and associations of glass were relevant to the use and function of glass vessels in the Merovingian period. Furthermore, Marieke, together with prof. Frans Theuws, has been working on a comprehensive typo-chronological handbook of Merovingian glass vessels, which will be published in the future. As a student-assistant, Marieke gathers and enters information on Merovingian glass vessels in the Rural Riches-database, and tests these data for future research.