Bead and Garnet Trade Between the Merovingian, Mediterranean, and Indian Worlds

Abstract

Written sources document the pursuit of trade between India and the Mediterranean world during the early Middle Ages. These traded goods, notably spices, perfume, and luxury fabrics, rarely leave material remains as a result of their perishable nature. Two types of archaeological finds dated from the fifth and sixth centuries have helped fill some of the gaps in the documentary sources. The first includes small beads of green-colored glass found in graves in which the beads appear to have been sewn onto pieces of clothing. As their chemical composition and the specific method of their manufacture reveal, these beads were produced in southern India and Sri Lanka and are known termed Indo-Pacific. The second type of archaeological find are garnets, which are found throughout western Europe at the start of the Merovingian period, decorating weapons, jewelry, and clothing accessories, most often in the cloisonné style. Recent chemical analysis of the garnets and their specific inclusion has been conducted with precision laboratory techniques. This analysis demonstrates that they came from deposits in India (mainly Rajasthan) and Sri Lanka, at least until around 600. For historical and economic reasons that remain unclear, the emporia in southern India and Sri Lanka at this time ceased to export the Indo-Pacific beads, and later garnets, to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean basin.

Hun kori örökség – a nagyváradi polikróm aranycsüngő

“…A természettudományos anyagvizsgálatok terén a 20-21. századforduló vízválasztó időszak a provenienciakutatások számának ugrásszerű növekedése miatt. A műszeres analitikai módszerek fejlődésével és gyarapodásával egyre több külföldi és hazai régészeti gyűjtemény ékköves anyagáról készült archeometriai elemzés (a legfontosabbak : Greiff 1998;Calligaro et al 2002;Mannerstrand & Lundqvist 2003;Gilg et al 2010;Horváth & Bendő 2011;Schmetzer et al 2017;Calligaro & Périn 2019;Pion et al 2020;Then-Obłuska et al 2021). A nemzetközi kutatás eredményei alapján az elmúlt évtizedekben folyamatosan fejlődik a régészeti korokban felhasznált gránátok geokémiai (ásványkémiai) meghatározása és osztályozása.…”

Garnet Trade in Early Medieval Europe: The Italian Network

“…Personal ornaments from the Italian peninsula follow this broader European trend, but have scarcely been studied, and garnets set in jewellery from Italian sites have never been analysed (Aimone, 2011). Hence, Italy has been overlooked by several recent studies on the provenance and trade of garnets in early medieval Europe, resulting in an incomplete model for the routes of that trade (Pion et al, 2020).…”

“…The current model of the circulation of garnets is based on the results of the chemical and mineralogical characterization of thousands of garnets from sixthseventh-century contexts in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, the Netherlands, the British Islands, and Nubia (Calligaro et al, 2007;Šmit et al, 2014;Hamerow et al, 2015;Pion et al, 2020; Then-Obl…”

“…The current model of the circulation of garnets is based on the results of the chemical and mineralogical characterization of thousands of garnets from sixth–seventh-century contexts in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, the Netherlands, the British Islands, and Nubia (Calligaro et al, 2007; Šmit et al, 2014; Hamerow et al, 2015; Pion et al, 2020; Then-Obłuska et al, 2021). These studies show that, until the end of the fifth century, the market was dominated by stones mined in southern Asia and sent to the Mediterranean via the Indian Ocean maritime route (Pion et al, 2020, with references). The import of South Asian garnets ceased at the end of the sixth century, when Bohemian and Portuguese gems appeared for the first time on the scene.…”

“…The import of South Asian garnets ceased at the end of the sixth century, when Bohemian and Portuguese gems appeared for the first time on the scene. Studies of early medieval garnets focus on the Merovingian world, and the current reconstruction of the route followed by garnets identifies Alexandria and Marseille as the two major hubs that controlled their circulation in the Mediterranean area (Pion et al, 2020: 849). Egypt, with the port of Alexandria, was certainly the point of entry for Asian goods directed to the Mediterranean.…”