Garnet Trade in Early Medieval Europe: The Italian Network

Abstract

The reconstruction of the trade routes along which garnets reached Europe in the early Middle Ages demonstrates the persistence of long-distance trade after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Early medieval garnet jewellery from Italy and the presence of lapidary workshops are important evidence for understanding the dynamics of this commerce but are systematically overlooked. Chemical trace-element analysis (LA-ICP-MS) of loose and inset garnets and glass inlays from burials in sixth–seventh-century Lombardy has identified South Asian and Bohemian garnets together with Egyptian glass. This combination shows that the long-distance trade routes crossing the Peninsula and the Alpine passes played a key role in the European market for garnets, significantly modifying the current model of the Mediterranean garnet trade and shedding new light on the character of the elites who emerged in Italy during the Migration period.

Four millennia of garnet trade in Northeast Africa—chemical analysis of ancient and Late Antiquity beads from Lower Nubian sites

“…Two A-Group beads (ISAC 08, ISAC 11) have Mg anomalies with concomitant elevated Li, B, Ni, Zn, and Sr contents that might be related to chlorite inclusions. All beads from Adindan (C-Group and Pan Grave) have elevated Rb contents, which cannot be related to the inclusions or the T A B L E 2 Comparison of compositional ranges, average values and standard deviations of the majority of Lower Nubian garnet beads (cluster I) with garnets from alluvial-eluvial deposits at Wadi Abu Dom and El Haraz, near the fourth cataract , cluster A, B (Boschetti et al, 2023;Gilg et al, 2018), and G garnets (Schmetzer et al, 2017). The major and minor element contents (in weight-% oxides) of the reference garnets are highquality electron microprobe data, whereas the reported trace element concentrations (in ppm weight) were exclusively from LA-ICP-MS analyses.…”