GLASS BEAD AND NORTH SEA EMPORIA. COMPOSITION, PRODUCTION AND PROCUREMENT OF GLASS
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-01-10

One of the earliest crafts documented in the coastal trading towns or emporia of the early medieval North Sea world is the production of glass beads using imported raw glass. In workshop contexts, beads occur with Roman tesserae, transparent blue glass chips and colorless vessel glass. The main research question of this study is what the chemical composition of these potential raw materials and beads can tell us about their production. Are the beads solely made from remelting tesserae or are various glass sources mixed remelting? Over the course of the eighth century, the composition of workshop waste and bead types varies notably,

raising the question if the networks of glass procurement changed in the course of Pirenne’s pivotal century. Especially, did newly produced East Mediterranean plant-ash glass or European wood-ash glass come to supplement the long-established pattern of recycled Roman glass? The paper presents the result of major element compositions analysis using Electron Microprobe and and minor elements (60 elements) by Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). They target chronologically well-dated and contextually excavated assemblages from a group of workshops ranging from the early to late eighth century in one of the principal nodes of early North Sea trade.


Author(s): Sindbæk, Søren (University of Aarhus) - Barfod, Gry (AGiR lab, Aarhus University)