Natron glass production and supply in the late antique and early medieval Near East: The effect of the Byzantine-Islamic transition

Abstract

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Geochemistry of Byzantine and Early Islamic glass from Jerash, Jordan: Typology, recycling, and provenance

“…Oxides are in wt% listed in Table 2. Data sources for comparative groups: HIMT (Group 1 of Foy, Picon, Vichy, & Thirion‐Merle, ), Apollonia (primary glass from Phelps et al., ; in their Table 2), Rom Mn and Rom Sb (Silvestri, ; Silvestri et al., ), Egypt I and II (Gratuze & Barrandon, ). Plot lay‐out originally from Schibille et al.…”

“…The manganese contents of raw glass from glass production sites in the Levant are below 250 ppm (Phelps, Freestone, Gorin‐Rosen, & Gratuze, ). This and other studies define a threshold for the natural background level of Mn in glass from the Levant around 250 ppm (Al‐Bashaireh, Al‐Mustafa, Freestone, & Al‐Housan, ; Brems & Degryse, ).…”

“…Levantine glass has been divided into Levantine I type characterized by 68–71 wt% SiO 2 and 14–16 wt% Na 2 O and Levantine II type with relatively higher 73–76 wt% SiO 2 and lower 11–13 wt% Na 2 O contents (Freestone et al., ). More recently, it has been recognized that the original grouping of Levantine I incorporated the products of at least two different primary productions (Al‐Bashaireh et al., ; Phelps et al., ; Schibille et al., ) and that these can be more‐or‐less separated on the basis of composition: 6th–7th century CE glass from Apollonia (Freestone, Jackson‐Tal, & Tal, ; Tal, Jackson‐Tal, & Freestone, ) and 4th century CE glass from Jalame (Brill, ). Figure presents our data in terms of CaO/Al 2 O 3 and Na 2 O/SiO 2 ratios, which pull apart glass from the two production sites (Phelps et al., ) and also separate Apollonia glass from natron glass (previously Levantine II) from the Umayyad production site at Bet Eli'ezer, Hadera (Al‐Bashaireh et al., ).…”

“…More recently, it has been recognized that the original grouping of Levantine I incorporated the products of at least two different primary productions (Al‐Bashaireh et al., ; Phelps et al., ; Schibille et al., ) and that these can be more‐or‐less separated on the basis of composition: 6th–7th century CE glass from Apollonia (Freestone, Jackson‐Tal, & Tal, ; Tal, Jackson‐Tal, & Freestone, ) and 4th century CE glass from Jalame (Brill, ). Figure presents our data in terms of CaO/Al 2 O 3 and Na 2 O/SiO 2 ratios, which pull apart glass from the two production sites (Phelps et al., ) and also separate Apollonia glass from natron glass (previously Levantine II) from the Umayyad production site at Bet Eli'ezer, Hadera (Al‐Bashaireh et al., ). The reference data for Roman period Jalame glass are supplemented with data for Rom‐Mn glass from the 3rd century CE Iulia Felix wreck (Silvestri, ; Silvestri, Molin, & Salviulo, ) and for the Byzantine Apollonia‐type with the analysis of vessels from Palestine (Phelps et al., ).…”

Comprehensive Chemical Characterisation of Byzantine Glass Weights

“…They differ in their compositional characteristics, indicating the use of different raw materials, particularly silica sources, and by extension different primary production locations. Two Levantine groups (Levantine I & II) tend to have relatively high alumina and lime concentrations, while they are lower in heavy minerals compared to Egyptian glasses (Egypt I & II) (for a comprehensive discussion of the chemical characteristics of these groups see [16]). Even higher quantities of iron, titanium and zirconium oxides characterise the so-called Foy-2 and HIMT ( H igh I ron, M anganese and T itanium) glasses that are believed to have likewise been produced from an Egyptian silica source [15, 17–20].…”