Abstract
We present compositional data for nearly 100 glass samples from Pergamon, western Turkey, spanning 1500 years from the Hellenistic to Late Byzantine and Islamic periods. The data shows the use of already-known Roman glass groups during the first half of the time frame, for imported vessels as well as locally worked glass. No compositional change is seen related to the introduction of glass blowing for either of the glass groups in use during this time. During the first half of the 1st millennium AD, two previously little-known boron- and alumina-rich compositional groups emerge. These glass groups, thought to be regionally produced, dominate glass compositions in Pergamon during the mid-to late Byzantine and Islamic periods, indicating a major shift in glass supply and a fragmentation of the economy into more regional units. Plant-ash glass, from the 9th century AD replacing mineral natron glass in the Levant, plays only a minor role in Byzantine and Islamic Pergamon.
Highlights
IntroductionFrom 1000 BC to the late 1st millennium AD, glass making in the Eastern Mediterranean was based on mineral natron from the Wadi Natrun in Egypt
For nearly two millennia, from 1000 BC to the late 1st millennium AD, glass making in the Eastern Mediterranean was based on mineral natron from the Wadi Natrun in Egypt
The nature of the glass assemblage from Pergamon, and the changes it underwent over time initially reflect the broad chronological trends known from previous analytical studies of 1st millennium AD glass, from Roman Britain through Italy, Egypt and the Levant
Summary
From 1000 BC to the late 1st millennium AD, glass making in the Eastern Mediterranean was based on mineral natron from the Wadi Natrun in Egypt. At least from the Roman period it seems to have been concentrated in a relatively small area stretching from lower Egypt (Nenna, 2000; Nenna et al, 2005) to the northern Levant (e.g. in Bet Eli'ezer, Freestone et al, 2002a; Beirut, Kouwatli et al, 2008), where it was fused with local sand (Fig. 1). The glass composition directly reflects impurities in the sand used by each producer, resulting in chemically distinct glass groups (Freestone, 2005, 2006; Degryse et al, 2009). From these primary production centres the finished glass was exported to the consumption centres for working into artefacts. The various compositional groups have limited life spans, as documented from archaeological finds, Current address: Art History, University of Sussex, Falmer/Brighton, UK
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