Sixth-century AD glassware from Jelica, Serbia—an increasingly complex picture of late antiquity glass composition

Abstract

In this paper, the chemical analyses of forty-two samples of glassware from the sixth to early seventh century AD Byzantine settlement of Gradina on Jelica, Serbia are reported, completing the previous study of forty windowpane samples from the same site. Apart from a single plant ash glass, all other glasses are natron-based, classified as Foy 2.1 (thirty-four), Foy 3.2 (six), and Roman (two). The ten colourless glasses from the assemblage are decolourised with manganese. Five glasses are intentionally coloured blue with cobalt and copper, one black with iron. Four blue glasses are opacified, one with antimony, one perhaps with tin. Some Jelica glass finds classified as Foy 3.2 are specific for having magnesium levels above those characteristic for serie 3.2. Jelica glasses assigned to Foy 2.1 group were further divided into low iron (twenty), high iron (four), and very high iron (six) subgroups. The overall compositional pattern of Jelica samples identified as Foy 2.1 suggest that different sands with different heavy mineral suites and sources of lime were used in their making, as well as different levels of recycling. Our findings indicate that the reasons for the compositional blurring of Foy 3.2 and Foy 2.1 are not limited to technological reasons such as recycling, but also include variations in the sand minerals. The results support the picture of the dominance of Foy 2.1 and Foy 3.2 types of glass in central and eastern Balkans and on the Macedonian-Thracian coast during the sixth century AD. Our findings, together with the apparent absence of Levantine glass from this region reported until now, suggest that different trade routes were supplying these regions with Eastern Mediterranean raw glass from those supplying Adriatic Sea coasts.