Vitreous Materials

The KU Leuven Dayr al-Barsha project worked in al-Shaykh Sa'id, just north of Amarna, in 2007-2010 and 2014, and discovered on the hillside, north of the mouth of the Wadi Zabayda, archaeological remains of a royal domain, dating to the reign of Khufu. Afterwards, royal workshops were established on top of the Old Kingdom remains to supply the New Kingdom city of Amarna with a range of different goods. Due to severe erosion, hardly any traces of buildings survive, but the industrial waste left behind provide sufficient clues that besides a vast stone artefact industry, the artisans were also making objects in faience, glass and copper. Objects relating to the textile industry were also uncovered. The presentation will give an overview of the archaeological finds relating to the various industries active at al-Shaykh Sa'id during the Amarna-period, and a comparison will be made with the faience and glass industry in the city of Amarna.

The field of archaeomaterials research has enormous potential to shed light on past innovation processes. However , this potential has been only partially recognized outside its immediate practitioners, despite the fact that innovation and technology change are topics of enduring interest in archaeology and the broader social sciences. This review explores the relationship between archaeomaterials research and the interdisciplinary study of innovation, and maps out a path toward greater integration of materials analysis into these discussions. To foster this integration, this review has three aims. First, I sketch the theoretical landscape of approaches to the study of innovation in archaeology and neighboring disciplines. I trace how theoretical traditions like evolutionary archaeology have influenced archaeomaterials approaches to questions of technological change while also highlighting cases where work by archaeomaterials researchers anticipated trends in the anthropology of technology. Next, I distill a series of core concerns that crosscut these different theoretical perspectives. Finally, I describe examples where archaeomaterials research has deepened scholarly understanding of innovation processes and addressed these core questions. The future of archaeomaterials research lies in engagement with these broader discussions and effective communication of the contributions that materials analysis can make to building a comparative understanding of innovation processes.

In the early twentieth century, Guy Brunton located a small number of turquoise beads and pendants in Badarian graves in the Qau-Matmar region in Middle Egypt. Recently, however, the use of turquoise during the Badarian period has been disputed. It is claimed that Brunton misidentified turquoise for glazed steatite, and that turquoise was not used in Egypt until the later Naqada IIC period. The current paper explores the verity of this statement by presenting the results of a preliminary investigation into the production techniques of Badarian glazed steatite beads. These support the notion that turquoise beads are misidentifications for glazed steatite beads. Conversely, they advocate in favour of the existence of turquoise pendants during the Badarian period, and thus against the notion that turquoise only began to be used from the Naqada IIC period onwards.

Scientific and archaeological research on pyrotechnological installations of the Late Bronze Age at Tell Atchana/Alalakh provide new opportunities to observe intercultural and intertechnological connections between Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, and the Aegean. Each region harmonized and adopted various cultural elements in producing ceramics and vitrified materials. LB IIa Alalakh offers an area of multi-functioning pyrotechnological installations and shared technological skills between ceramic and vitrified material productions that help us to give voice to possible linkages among different crafts.

Modern‐day Çorum is the homeland of the Hatti people; the culture that went on to form the Hittite Empire. Resuloğlu, which dates back to the latter half of the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2500/2400–2100/2050 BC), is a unique Hatti site with its settlement and cemetery areas systematically excavated. Among thousands of beads found at Resuloğlu, various materials were identified such as ceramic, copper and its alloys, carnelian, shells, and blue, green, and white‐colored beads. The microstructure and chemical compositions of 26 morphologically similar, colored beads were analyzed by optical microscopy, ICP–MS, XRD, and EPMA and are the focus of this paper. The results demonstrate faience bead production with efflorescence and cementation glazing techniques. The abundance of the raw materials at the Halys Basin (Central Anatolia) signals a local production, and there is a suggestion of a relationship with copper metallurgy.

Desde fines del siglo XIX el vidrio es uno de los materiales más comunes hallados en los contextos arqueológicos de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Las manufacturas vítreas de origen
extranjero comienzan a masificarse hacia el cambio de siglo, a la vez que la industria local emprende su propio desarrollo. El consumo cada vez más generalizado de estos artículos se evidencia en los depósitos arqueológicos, muchos de los cuales consisten en rellenos para la
nivelación de terrenos urbanos.
Los depósitos de relleno plantean desafíos adicionales a la interpretación arqueológica, y algunas de sus implicancias serán tratadas a través de dos casos de estudio de finales del
siglo XIX y XX/XXI, en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Se propone la aplicación de una metodología de análisis para clasificar los artefactos vítreos como así también algunas
propuestas para el abordaje interpretativo de este tipo de contextos arqueológicos.

Bronze Age glass is only documented being produced in the Near East, Nile and Po valleys, India and China, but vitreous materials, like glass-paste and faïence, are seen in significant amounts in other parts of Afro-Eurasia. These suggest local production of non-glass, vitreous materials, which presently are elusive or at least different appropriations of the material or technology. Nevertheless, the appearance of glass in the later Bronze Age in the region does suggest a far reaching connectivity, while documented agencies in the production areas, does suggests their importance in the local social milieu as well. Since the social engagement of vitreous beads shifts, two diachronic trends are noted, which are in tone with the wider intercontinental linkages.
Bronze Age amber originates in most cases from the Baltic region, though succinate is not the only known source in Europe, as others are exploited at this time. Their associations with gold and other bronze objects suggesting a relation to the Sun does compel a more meaningful interpretation. Their different appropriations during the earlier and later Bronze Age in the study region, indicate a change in consumption preferences of this commodity, which can only be viewed in a wider context. Moreover, the beads seen in the study area do differentiate in terms of shapes, which chronological information, but also indicate a web, where finished goods and ideas are exchanged and adapted to local needs.
The recently coined term of bronzization, which is seen as the Bronze Age globalisation of Afro-Eurasia, allows for several glocalisations of goods and ideas. The Bronze Age Eastern Carpathian Basin represents a hub, where people, commodities and social practices meet and travel through, in a lot of ways at the very crossroads of worlds. Through the analysis of these, smallest, archaeological finds the widest connections can be suggested, while specific local, social traits are underscored by their specific appropriation contexts.

The paper provides a brief summary of origins and making techniques of Egyptian faience. Finds from Bohemia dated to the Roman Period, i. e. beads and a pendant, are presented, including their find circumstances. The artefacts are put into two classification systems and some of their formal characteristics and chronological occurrence are discussed. The issues of provenance and use are mentioned as well.

The Greek term for faience-producers was kallainopoioi, or turquoise-makers, signaling the blue color range associated with the material.  Indeed, Hellenistic faience exhibits a rich range of blues from robin’s egg to caerulean along with greens and other colors, inventive decoration of great beauty, new and larger forms, and new technology that make it yet another high point in the long history of the material. In this brief contribution, I describe the Hellenistic faience repertoire, and offer a few observations stimulated by the chefs d’oeuvre that formed part of the exhibition "Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World."

The vitreous material, from Terqa comes from building sites E and F and comprises a group of manufactured articles made of earthenware, Egyptian blue and glass, as well as an ingot of vitreous material.
The material from site F was found in the Paleo-Babylonian levels of a large administrative building. It is a set of 78 ring beads of very small dimensions.
The material from site E, located at the eastern limit of the tell, on the edge of the Euphrates, is more diversified and more recent, dated from the middle of the second millennium BC. when Terqa became the capital of the kingdom of Hana. The objects were found in the outbuildings of a large public building (temple or palace), as indicated by the excavator. Some objects come from spaces that may have been open and in which platforms are built for craft activities. The locus k44 was identified by the excavator as a "workshop for the manufacture of objects made of glass paste". It is from a neighboring room, the locus k45, that the cuneiform archive dates from the middle of the second millennium BC.
The corpus consists essentially of beads of simple shapes, two in Egyptian blue and seventeen in glass. There is also a fragment of a glass pendant in the shape of a nude female figure belonging to a well-known series, attested from Greece to Mesopotamia, through the Levant, Asia Minor and interior Syria. These pendants, which are usually given prophylactic roles, come from archaeological contexts dating from the late Bronze Age, from the end of the 16th century to the 13th century BC. The item of Terqa is one of the oldest specimens.

The Andes collection in Tokai University has three strings of necklaces that have glass beads. Since it is commonly regarded that the pre-Columbian Andeans did not know glass of glass manufacture, those strung beads in our collection are most likely introduced by Spanish traders during the colonial period. The aim of this paper is to determine the date and origin of manufacture of the glass beads in order to contribute to the chronology of Andean colonial beads.
A necklace, No. 11571-952 had 6 chevron and 3 Nueva Cadiz beads. Thanks to the well-established classification of chevron beads, the glass beads of 11571-952 most probably fall into the range of 16th century, and perhaps manufactured in Murano Island, Venice. Other beads of 11571-894 and 9983-198 were much difficult to date because their un-paralleled shapes and treatments. Thus the descriptive notes are given in this paper, hoping to establish a background for further study.

... with the unusual chemical composition, in our view may be indicative of a local production imitatingAegean typologies. ... No HMG production or trade seems to be present. ... In the light of the present evidence, the evolution of glass technology during the entire Bronze Age is rather ...

The study was to analyze the technical feasibility of the incorporation of vitreous waste, from enamel decanters, into a heavy clay mass for fired clay ceramic structural block production. The analyzed waste is considered as class I-Dangerous due to the presence of toxic elements in the leachate above the Brazilian waste classification standard. Six formulations made the standard mass and others with different percentages (2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 %) of the added waste. Chemical and mineralogical characterization tests of the raw materials carried out. The technological properties evaluated were linear thermal retraction of drying and firing, loss on fire, water absorption and mechanical resistance. The results presented in the formulations demonstrated the feasibility of using up to 20 % by weight in standard mass. Where it was possible to decrease the water absorption and increase the mechanical strength. This work also contributes to the reduction of the environmental impact and favors the sustainable development of the heavy clay ceramics contributing to the improvement of the quality of the pieces.

The microstructure and chemical composition of eight faience beads from an early Iron Age (12th century BCE) assemblage found in the ancient city port of Ashkelon (Israel) are determined by means of FTIR spectrometry, pXRF, microRaman and SEM-EDS analysis. The results are compared with published data of Egyptian and Near Eastern artifacts. Each sample exhibits a hue which is obtained by adding a specific colorant to the glazing mixture. A new gray chalcopyrite-manganese-based colorant was identified. Cementation glazing was most likely used in the manufacturing process of the specimens analyzed, except for the blue bead, which is an Egyptian blue frit. The results suggest that these objects represent a unique assemblage, quite different from contemporary Egyptian and Near Eastern materials, and provide new information regarding the Iron Age faience evidence in the southern Levant.

... with the unusual chemical composition, in our view may be indicative of a local production imitatingAegean typologies. ... No HMG production or trade seems to be present. ... In the light of the present evidence, the evolution of glass technology during the entire Bronze Age is rather ...