Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 852 © 2005 Materials Research Society
OO8.1.1
The Provenance of Ancient Glass through Compositional Analysis
Ian C. Freestone
Cardiff School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University
Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales UK
ABSTRACT
Recent developments in the understanding of the low-magnesia soda-lime-silica or “natron”
glasses of the first millennium A.D. are reviewed. It appears that glass production was divided
between a small number of primary glass making centres, situated mainly in the Near East, and a
large number of secondary fabrication workshops that remelted and shaped the lumps of raw,
premelted glass. Glass may be related to its primary production group by elemental analysis and,
where there are data from workshops, to the production centre or region. The recycling of old
glass is revealed by trace element analysis, due to the contamination of primary glass
compositions by small quantities of coloured glass incorporated in the recycled material. The
analysis of isotopes of Sr and Pb allows the geological environment of the raw materials to be
inferred and in some cases, provenance to be predicted.
INTRODUCTION
This paper summarises some of the advances that have been made in our understanding of
glass compositions and their application to the investigation of trade and exchange over the past
few years. It focuses in particular on “Roman” glass which is understood here to include not
only the glass produced during the Roman period in the strict sense but also the glass of similar
composition that was in use throughout most of the first millennium A.D., up to the mid-ninth
century.
Until the late 1990s, most analytical work on glass was directed towards understanding the
fundamentals of early glass technology. Where addressed, questions of trade in glass were
structured in a similar way to those that could be successfully asked of ceramics. In particular, it
was hoped that the trade in glass vessels could be mapped by the demonstration that vessels of a
particular form or typology had similar compositions and were from a particular workshop. It
was anticipated that a workshop would have produced a glass of a constant composition which
distinguished it from glass made in another workshop, which was made from its own local raw
materials. This is the type of model inferred from medieval texts and illustrations such as the
twelfth century writings of Theophilus [1] and the famous fifteenth century illustration
accompanying the Bohemian manuscript of Sir John Mandeville’s travels [2]. In medieval
European glass making, the raw materials were obtained locally, in the form of river sand and
beech or bracken ashes, so that each glass house produced vessels of a distinctive composition.
Translating this to Roman soda-lime-silica glasses, it was envisaged that soda was a traded
commodity, but glass houses used their own sand, so that each should have produced glass of a
distinctive composition.
OO8.1.2
Unfortunately, even the most carefully formulated analytical programmes failed to produce
clear compositional groupings corresponding to typology [3]. Roman glass was found to be a
relatively homogeneous soda-lime-silica glass, with little variation in major element
composition. For example, alumina varies between only 2 and 3% for the majority of Roman
glass of the 1st-3rd centuries AD, a time when glass was produced on a massive scale.
Roman glass appears to have been made from relatively simple raw materials. The seminal
work of Sayre and Smith in the 1960s [4] demonstrated that early soda-lime-silica glasses could
be divided into two compositional types. One has relatively high magnesia and high potash
(typically more than 2% of each oxide) and it is generally recognised that this was made using
plant ash as a source of soda. The second type is characteristic of Roman glass and has low
potash and low magnesia. It is agreed that the source of soda in Roman glass was natron, a term
used generically by archaeologists to include a range of relatively pure sodium salts including
chlorides and sulphates but in particular the sodium bicarbonate mineral, trona. Natron is low in
MgO, K2O and P2O5, in contrast to plant ash, and this is the cause of the compositional
distinction between the two glass categories. As indicated by Pliny [5], the preferred source of
natron was Egypt, where soda-rich lakes evaporate to yield soda salts in the spring. Glass made
from natron was the dominant type in the Mediterranean and surrounding regions from the midfirst millennium BC through to around 850 A.D.
It is also understood that glass based on natron was produced on a very large scale. A series of
seventeen furnace floors excavated at the site Bet Eli‘ezer, near Hadera in Israel [6], melted large
blocks of glass similar to the 8 ton slab which remains in a cave at the site of Bet She‘arim,
shown in Figure 1 [7]. The workshops that melted such slabs of glass from raw materials were
Figure 1. The glass slab at Bet She‘arim, Israel. Dimensions 3.40 x 1.95 x 0.45 m. The slab
appears to have failed due to an excess of lime in the batch [7].
OO8.1.3
primary production centres which typically did not fabricate glass vessels. The slabs were
broken up into chunks of glass which were distributed to secondary workshops to be remelted to
make glass vessels. By comparing compositions of glass from the Bet Eli‘ezer furnaces with
those of dated glass vessels, it is inferred that they were active in the early eighth century.
However, it seems probable that glass was melted in similar installations in the Roman period.
Furnaces of Roman date, making glass on a similar scale occur in Egypt and are under
investigation by Marie-Dominique Nenna, of La Maison De l’Orient at Lyons, but these appear
to have forms which are different from the Palestinian furnaces [8]. Evidence from shipwrecks
shows that, in Roman times, chunks of glass were traded across the Mediterranean [9].
The implications of the archaeological discoveries and associated analytical work are that
there were probably a small number of primary workshops making raw glass, and they appear to
have been located near the sources of raw materials (sand and alkali) in Egypt and Palestine.
Each primary workshop could supply a large number of secondary workshops with raw glass,
Thus, many workshops could have been making vessels, windows or beads using glass made by
a single primary source, and these would have been of essentially the same composition. On the
other hand, a single workshop could, in principle, receive glass from more than one primary
source, and thus would have produced vessels of two or more compositional types.
As this paper discusses glass from a large number of locations, a summary of sites, types of
glass and known or attributed production areas is provided in Appendix 1.
LIME IN GLASSMAKING SANDS
To understand how glass can be related back to the furnaces in which it was made, the origins
of all of the components in the glass must be understood. Typical compositions of some sodaLevantine II
Bet Eli‘ezer
Levantine I
Apollonia
HIMT
Carthage
Egypt II
Ashmunein
Roman
blue-green
Leicester
SiO2
74.9
70.6
64.8
68.2
70.7*
Na2O
12.1
15.2
18.7
15.0
18.4
K2O
0.46
0.71
0.44
0.2
0.69
CaO
7.16
8.07
5.24
10.8
6.43
MgO
0.63
0.63
1.29
0.5
0.55
Al2O3
3.32
3.05
3.18
2.1
2.33
FeO
0.52
0.35
2.07
0.7
0.60
MnO
<0.1
<0.1
2.66
0.2
0.26
Oxide
Table 1. Typical compositions of natron-type soda-lime-silica glasses of the first millennium
AD. Data of the author except Roman blue-green which is the mean of 75 glasses from ref. 24.
* silica by difference.
OO8.1.4
lime-silica glasses are given in Table 1. It is accepted that soda was added as a relatively pure
component, and silica is likely to have been added as sand. Thus the origin of lime, the next
most abundant component, is of particular interest. Lime is generally present in the range 5-10
wt. %, and it is necessary to determine if it was it added deliberately, as a third starting
component, along with the silica and the soda. An indication of the form in which the lime was
added can be gained through the investigation of the isotopes of the element strontium, which
was typically added to the glass as a trace element present in calcium-rich minerals, especially in
calcium carbonate. The strontium isotopes of seawater vary with geological time, a phenomenon
which has been extensively studied in geochemistry, and the isotopic composition of sea water is
inherited by the CaCO3 that it precipitates, in the form of invertebrate shells and limestone.
Modern ocean water, and the shell grown by marine invertebrates, has an 87Sr/86Sr ratio of
approximately 0.7092, whereas Tertiary limestones, such as those found in Egypt, have lower
ratios. The absolute concentration of Sr also varies according to the nature of the host CaCO3
mineral: aragonite, typical of marine shell, tends to have high Sr, and calcite, typical of
limestone, has low Sr [10,11].
The strontium isotopic compositions of glasses from ancient glass furnaces are shown in
Figure 2, along with their strontium contents. The glasses from the tank furnaces at Bet Eli‘ezer
on the Levantine coast have 87Sr/86Sr corresponding to Holocene sea water and high Sr,
suggesting that the lime was added to the glass in the form of marine shell. Particles of shell are
common in the beach sands of the eastern Mediterranean coast. Glass from an inland workshop
at el Ashmunein in Middle Egypt, however, has low 87Sr/86Sr and low Sr, indicating that the lime
was added to the glass in the form of limestone. These results are consistent with the
exploitation of local lime-bearing sands as the sources of lime and silica in the glasses.
600
Plant Ash
Coastal
Sand
Sr ppm
400
300
200
100
Limestone-bearing sand
0
0.7075
0.7080
0.7085
87
0.7090
Modern Ocean Water
500
Bet Eliezer
Bet Shean
Ashmunein
Banias
0.7095
Sr/86Sr
Figure 2. Total strontium and strontium isotope ratios in near eastern soda-lime-silica glasses.
The glasses made from Levantine coastal sand have elemental and isotopic values close to those
anticipated for marine shell, while the glasses from el Ashmunein (middle Egypt, eighth-ninth
centuries) have values corresponding to limestone.
OO8.1.5
Interestingly, when lime and soda are added in the form of plant ash, the ash may have a
relatively low isotopic ratio, inherited from the local soil, while the total Sr content, inherited
from the plant material, is quite high. This is illustrated by the plant ash glass from Banias,
Israel, in Figure 2.
Analysis of sands from the Levant and Egypt reveals concentrations of CaO, along with minor
components such as Al2O3, Fe2O3 and MgO which are sufficient to account for those present in
ancient glass [12]. Thus Roman-type glass was generally made from two components: a very
pure soda and an impure lime-bearing silica sand. The composition of the glass is therefore
essentially that of the sand, diluted by soda, which is generally present in the range 12-20%
Na2O.
GLASSMAKING GROUPS
It is convenient to investigate glassmaking groups in the first instance using major elements.
A full range of major elements is determined in most investigations of early glass, and the
measurements are generally relatively accurate, allowing inter-comparison between laboratories.
Inter-comparison, rather than multiple analysis, is desirable in archaeological work because
conservation considerations dictate that repeated sampling of an artefact should be avoided.
The concentrations of soda and silica in a glass tend to reflect variations in the proportions of
the two major raw materials mixed by the glassmakers. While most workshops appear to have
14.0
Wadi Natrun
12.0
Egypt II
Bet Eli'ezer
CaO
10.0
Levantine I
HIMT
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
Al2O3
Figure 3. Lime and alumina contents for five production groups dating from the fourth to ninth
centuries A.D. Data from refs. 13-15.
OO8.1.6
produced glasses with fairly restricted ranges of Na2O and SiO2, they do not directly reflect the
composition of the sand source. Lime and alumina are useful, as they are well determined by
most laboratories, and can be related to the concentrations of minerals such as feldspar and
calcite-aragonite in the glassmaking sand. Figure 3 shows the CaO and Al2O3 of five groups of
glass found in the eastern Mediterranean between the fourth and the ninth centuries A.D. The
Wadi Natrun and Egypt II groups were recognised by Gratuze in his major study of Islamic glass
weights [13]. We have added two Levantine groups: Levantine I represents late Roman and
Early Byzantine (5-7th century) production in the Levant, while the Bet Eli‘ezer group includes
the glass from these tank furnaces, which appear to date to the 7-8th centuries [14]. Finally,
HIMT is a type of glass with high iron manganese and titanium which becomes widespread in
the late 4-5th centuries [15]. It is seen that these groups are separated fairly well even by this
simple type of plot. It should be noted, however, that the groups shown are not exhaustive.
Work by Foy, Picon and co-workers [16, 17] suggests that there are likely to have been around
10 major glass groups in the Mediterranean region and western Europe between 1st and 9th
centuries A.D. However, not all of these groups were in production at any one time.
Trace elements present in the glass can help to separate the groups and confirm the affiliations
of individual objects. In our work, we have determined a range of traces by inductively coupled
plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), using solution techniques [14]. In Figure 4 the traces are
normalised to the mean composition of the continental crust, so anomalies may be easily
recognised. It is seen that the trace element compositions of glasses from different production
centres, for example Egypt II and the Levant, are readily distinguished from one another.
3.00
Egypt II
Bet Eli 'ezer
HIMT
Glass/Crust
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
Ga Rb
Sr
Y
Zr
Ba La Ce
Pr
Nd Th
Figure 4. Characteristic trace element concentrations for three production groups, normalised to
mean values in continental crust [see ref. 14].
OO8.1.7
14.0
Wadi Natrun
Egypt II
Bet Eli'ezer
Levantine I
HIMT
Maroni
12.0
CaO
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
Al2O3
Figure 5. Lime versus alumina for major glass groups and glass from Maroni Petrera, Cyprus,
showing similarities to Levantine I and HIMT groups.
THE TRADE IN GLASS
Maroni Petrera
Cyprus would have been a likely recipient of unmodified raw glass from the large tank
furnaces on the Levantine coast, through marine trade. We therefore analysed vessel and
window glass from a 6-7th century Byzantine church at Maroni Petrera, in southern Cyprus [18].
In Figures 5 and 6 it can be seen that most of the glass from Maroni appears similar to the
Levantine I type, and is likely to have been melted in the Levantine region. However, a
subordinate number of samples look similar to HIMT glass. The correlation between FeO and
Al2O3 shown by the HIMT glass (Figure 6) is one of the distinctive characteristics of this group.
Trace elements confirm that most of the Maroni glass is of the Levantine I type [18] but
Figure 7 shows that there are anomalies in the concentrations of certain elements such as Co, Pb,
Zn, Cu and Ag, which can be much higher than in the Levantine tank furnaces. These elements
are typically associated with colouration processes in early glass. It appears that the Maroni
glass was not melted directly from raw chunks, that were imported directly from a primary
furnace in the Levant. The presence of the elevated colourant elements indicates that cullet (old
scrap glass), including small quantities of coloured glass, was incorporated in the batch.
Therefore the Maroni glass, at least partly, was recycled material. The colourant trace elements
provide us with an indicator of glass recycling. This finding emphasises the need for a detailed
understanding of the underlying glass technology, if elemental analysis is to be used in
provenance investigations.
OO8.1.8
4.0
HIMT
Levantine I
Maroni Group 1
Maroni Group 2
FeO
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
Al2O3
Figure 6. Iron oxide versus alumina showing subdivision of Maroni Petrera glass into groups
corresponding to Levantine I and HIMT.
1000
1000
Maroni Group 1
ppm
Apollonia
100
100
10
10
1
1
0.1
0.1
Co
Cu
Zn
Pb
Ag
Co
Cu
Zn
Pb
Ag
Figure 7. Trace elements associated with colouration in raw chunks of Levantine I glass from
Apollonia, Israel, and Levantine I glass from Maroni Petrera. Note the logarithmic scale.
OO8.1.9
HIMT Glassmaking, a Possible Source Area
As has been noted, HIMT glass is compositionally distinctive. In addition to their elevated
concentrations, the oxides of iron, titanium, manganese and so on also show strong linear
correlations, an example of which is seen above in Figure 6. These features allow the ready
identification of this glass type, and it can be identified all over the late Roman world. Its
presence on Cyprus is therefore not surprising.
7.0
Wt. % CaO
6.5
6.0
5.5
5.0
R2 = 0.64
4.5
4.0
0.7080
0.7085
0.7090
87
Sr/86Sr
1.6
Wt. % MgO
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
R2 = 0.80
0.6
0.4
18.300
18.500
206
18.700
18.900
Pb/204Pb
Figure 8. Correlations between major elements, strontium and lead isotopes in HIMT glass
indicate that it is a mixture of two end-members, one rich in terrigenous constituents (high
87
Sr/86Sr), the other with more marine characteristics (low 87Sr/86Sr).
OO8.1.10
The challenge posed by HIMT is not to identify members of the group, but to determine where
this glass was made, for we have no evidence of the furnaces that produced it. In this case
isotopic analysis has proved particularly useful. The strong correlations shown between the
oxide components of HIMT are replicated by the isotopes, as seen in Figure 8. These
correlations appear to indicate that the sand component of the glass represents a mixture of two
components, one with low 87Sr/86Sr, rich in marine strontium, and the other which is richer in
terrigenous strontium (i.e. strontium derived from inland rock outcrops, rather than ocean water).
We have interpreted this glass as likely to be a product of Egypt, as the sands along the coast
from the mouth of the Nile might be expected to show the juxtaposition of typical beach sands
with others containing relatively high amounts of terrigenous particulate matter, derived from the
Nile [15]. HIMT also has a relatively high Na2O content (Table 1) which would favour an origin
close to the Egyptian natron deposits, while its unusually high MnO content could have been
obtained from the major manganese oxide deposits in the North Sinai.
Other Mediterranean sites
Analysis of assemblages of fourth to seventh century glass from other areas of the
Mediterranean suggests that they have similar origins to the glass from Maroni Petrera. For
example, glass recovered from field survey of the North Sinai, Egypt, consists mainly of HIMT
and Levantine I glass, similar to Maroni [19]. Further afield, 5th-6th century glass from Rome
analysed by Verità [20] shows a similar distribution, seen in Figure 9. It appears that the
Levantine and HIMT sources were supplying much of the Late Antique world with raw glass.
Accepting the proposed coastal or near coastal Egyptian origin of the HIMT group, it can be seen
that the eastern Mediterranean factories dominated glass supply at this time.
3.0
2.5
FeO
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
Al2 O3
Figure 9. Fourth to sixth century glass from Rome showing characteristic distribution of HIMT
and Levantine I. Compare figure 6. Data of M. Verità [20].
OO8.1.11
Northern Europe
A little more surprising, perhaps, is that similar patterns may be seen in glass from what was,
in the seventh century, the end of the world. For example, we have examined the window glass
from the Saxon monastery at Jarrow, northern England, excavated by Professor Rosemary
Cramp [21]. The monastery was founded in 675 A.D., and it is assumed that the windows date
to about this time. Major and trace elements confirm a close similarity between some Jarrow
glass and Levantine I glasses, as shown in Figure 10.
Was raw glass imported directly from the Levant into northern England in the so-called Dark
Ages? It seems more likely that it was brought from the continent by Frankish glass workers,
who are documented as having glazed the monastery. The raw glass may therefore have been
originally made in the Levantine region, and have been taken to England indirectly. High
transition metals in many of the glass fragments from Jarrow support the idea that the glass was
recycled cullet, and the glass workers may therefore have brought a supply of old broken glass
from the continent for re-melting. However, this is not a cast-iron, certain argument, as coloured
window glass was being worked on site. If the same pots were used to melt coloured and
colourless glass, then contamination of the type observed would have occurred. Sensitivity to
the technological context is therefore, once again, critical when addressing this type of question.
Glass/Crust
1.8
1.6
Jarrow
1.4
Apollonia chunk
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Ga Rb Sr
Y Zr Ba La Ce Pr Nd Th
Figure 10. Comparison of trace elements in glass from Jarrow monastery, Northumbria, UK
with primary chunk glass from Apollonia, Israel.
OO8.1.12
CONCLUSIONS
Our understanding of early glass has undergone a revolution in the past few years. For the
first time we are able to use major element analyses to recognise meaningful production groups
and to determine glass origins. Trace elements refine this understanding, and also indicate the
operation of recycling processes. Isotopic techniques are providing new insights into the raw
materials used and allow inferences to be made about their geological origins. However, the
division of the production process between a few primary production centres and many
secondary fabrication workshops means that, while the circulation of the raw glass material can
be investigated, it is often not possible to determine the movement of the finished vessels.
In the first millennium AD, glass was supplied by a limited number of production centres,
mainly located in the eastern Mediterranean region. Compositional changes appear to occur with
the waxing and waning of primary glass factories. In this paper I have discussed in particular
two compositional groups of glass: Levantine I from the coastal regions of Syria-Palestine and
HIMT, probably from Egypt. The sources of these glasses dominated the industry in the 5th-7th
centuries A.D.
These developments have been made possible by a combination of factors including in
particular new archaeological discoveries of production sites, the analysis of production debris
and the informed selection of analytical samples from consumer sites. In particular, an
appreciation of the technology of the glass is crucial in any study of provenance, so that
technologically-determined compositional characteristics are omitted from consideration. Thus
our own studies have focused on naturally rather than deliberately coloured glasses to minimise
any perturbation effects caused by the colouration process on the base composition of the glass.
Even so, elevated concentrations of transition metals associated with colouration are commonly
encountered due to the recycling of cullet, and must be recognised and allowed for. For this
reason, unconsidered multivariate statistical analysis of raw analytical data is likely to be
problematic.
Although this paper has focused upon Late Roman/ Byzantine natron-based glass, significant
progress is also being made towards the provenancing of plant ash glass from the Islamic and
medieval periods [22, 23]. Furthermore, the applications of additional isotopic systems such as
those of oxygen and neodymium are being investigated. We can therefore anticipate further
developments in this rapidly advancing area.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the organizers for inviting me to the MRS Symposium. I am indebted to my
collaborators, including Mike Hughes, Karen Leslie, Colleen Stapleton, (British Museum ), Yael
Gorin-Rosen (Israel Antiquities Authority), Matthew Thirlwall (Royal Holloway University of
London), Sophie Wolf (Oxford/Fribourg), Matt Ponting (Nottingham), and Rosemary Cramp
(Durham). Support for analysis was generously provided by the late Mr. Gerry Martin through
The Renaissance Trust.
OO8.1.13
REFERENCES
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Chicago, 1979)
2. S. Davison, Conservation and Restoration of Glass (Butterworth Heinmann, New York
2003) Plate 1
3. M.J.Baxter, H.E.M. Cool, M.P. Heyworth, and C.M. Jackson, Archaeometry, 37, 129-141
(1995).
4. E. V. Sayre and R. W. Smith, Science 133, 1824-1826 (1961).
5. D.E. Eicholz, Pliny – Natural History Books 36-37 (Loeb, Harvard, 1962).
6. Y. Gorin-Rosen, in La Route du Verre, edited by M-D Nenna (Maison de l'Orient
Méditerranéen, Lyon, 2000), 49-63.
7. I.C. Freestone and Y. Gorin-Rosen, J. Glass Studies, 41, 105-116 (1999).
8. M-D. Nenna, M. Picon and M. Vichy, in La Route du Verre, edited by M-D Nenna (Maison
de l'Orient Méditerranéen, Lyon, 2000), p. 97-112.
9. D. Foy, M. Vichy and M..Picon, Annales 14th Cong. de l’Association pour l’Histoire du
Verre, (AIHV, Amsterdam, 2000), 51-57.
10. K.H. Wedepohl and A. Baumann, Naturwissenschaften, 87, 129-132 (2000).
11. I.C. Freestone, K.A. Leslie, M.Thirlwall, and Y. Gorin-Rosen, Archaeometry, 45, 19-32
(2003).
12. R.H. Brill Chemical Analyses of Early Glasses (Corning Museum of Glass, New York:
1999).
13. B. Gratuze and J-N. Barrandon, Archaeometry, 32, 155-162 (1990).
14. I.C. Freestone, Y. Gorin-Rosen, and M.J. Hughes, in La Route du Verre, edited by M-D
Nenna (Maison de l'Orient Méditerranéen, Lyon, 2000), 65-84.
15. I. C. Freestone, S. Wolf and M. Thirlwall Annales du 16e Congres de l’Association
Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre. (AIHV, Amsterdam, 2005), 153-157.
16. D. Foy, M. Picon, M.Vichy, , and V. Thirion-Merle, in: Échanges et Commerce du Verre
dans le Monde Antique edited by D. Foy and M-D. Nenna (Montagnac: Éditions Monique
Mergoil, 2003), 41-85.
17. D. Foy, M Picon and M. Vichy, Annales 15e Congrès de l’Association Internationale pour
l’Histoire du Verre, (AIHV, Amsterdam, 2003)138-143.
18. I.C. Freestone, M. Ponting, and M.J. Hughes, Archaeometry, 44, 257-272 (2002).
19. I.C. Freestone, R. Greenwood and Y. Gorin-Rosen, in Hyalos - Vitrum - Glass edited by G.
Kordas (Athens, 2002) 167-174.
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(Musée Archaéologique Départemental du Val d’Oise, 1995) 291-300.
21. I.C. Freestone, Annales 15e Congrès de l’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire du
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Pernicka and G A Wagner, (Basel: Birkhauser Verlag 1991), 295-305.
OO8.1.14
Appendix 1. Summary information on glass mentioned in the figures and text
Find Site/or group
Probable production
Ref
Period A.D.
Context
Glass
Artefact
Type
Type
Primary workshop
Natron
Raw glass chunk
area/ group
Bet Eli'ezer, Israel
Bet Eli'ezer, Israel
6, 7, 14
6th-8th C
th
Bet Shea'rim, Israel
Bet Shea'rim, Israel
7, 12
?9 C
Primary furnace
Plant ash
Raw glass slab
Bet She'an, Israel
Levantine I: Palestine
6, 11
6th-7th C
Secondary workshop
Natron
Raw glass chunk
Apollonia (Arsuf), Israel
Apollonia, Israel
6, 14
6th -7th C
Primary workshop
Natron
Raw glass chunk
th
th
th
Banias, Israel
? Syria-Palestine
14
10 /11 -13 C
Secondary workshop
Plant ash
Raw glass chunk
Egypt I: Data of B. Gratuze
? Wadi Natrun, Egypt
13
?6th-7th C
Museum Collections
Natron
Glass weights
North Sinai
HIMT and Levantine I
15, 19
4th-5th C
Field survey
Natron
Vessel fragments
th
th
Tel el-Ashmunein, Egypt
Egypt II: ?Middle Egypt
14
8 -9 C
Secondary workshop
Natron
Vessels and waste
Egypt II: Data of B. Gratuze
? Middle Egypt
13
8th-9th C
Museum Collections
Natron
Glass weights
Carthage, Tunisia
HIMT: Egypt (? Delta)
15
4th-6th C
? Secondary workshop Natron
Raw glass chunk
th
Jarrow, UK
Syria-Palestine
21
7 C
Monastery
Natron
Window fragments
Rome: Data of M. Verità
HIMT and Levantine I
20
4th-6th C
Consumer sites
Natron
Vessel fragments
Maroni Petrera, Cyprus
HIMT and Levantine I
18
6th-7th C
Church
Natron
Vessel and window
Note: Limitations of space mean that it is not practicable to provide the original literature sources for all of the glass finds. The
references cited provide a route into the literature and to the analytical information.