James Lankton

An ancient bead is a document from the past—a message in a bottle—written in some lost symbolic language. Archaeologists try to understand that language by integrating scientific and technological approaches with the social, economic, political, and symbolic/ religious context in which the bead was found. As an example, we use Korean National Treasure 634 (NT634), a dark blue glass bead adorned with mosaic decorations of a bird, a flowering tree, and a human face, found in a 5th-6th century Korean tomb. This bead suggests its meaning by how and where it was made, and what its images may represent.

The medieval port city of Sīrāf (ca. 800–1050 CE) on the north coast of the Persian/Arabian Gulf linked the core lands of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate with India, China, Africa, and beyond. 101 glass fragments recovered from the 1966–1973 excavations at Sīrāf and now at the Corning Museum of Glass were analysed using LA-ICPMS in order to explore the glassmaking raw materials and technology of the objects found within the city, as well as to address issues of the production and trade of glass during the Islamic period. The results indicate that the main groups of glass at Sīrāf likely date to the 9th–early 11th centuries and can be subdivided by the trace elements zirconium and chromium. Chemical matches with some likely Indian glass, and with glass finds from South and Southeast Asia, underline the pivotal role of the Gulf in the eastward movement of Islamic glass via the Indian Ocean trade network, as well as the influx of Indian glass into the Islamic world. Glass bangles and a small number of vessel fragments likely date to the late 11th century or later, and their chemical compositions indicate different production origins.

Deutsch: Im Rahmen des Projektes Ancient Mining and Metallurgy in West Central Iran hat das Deutsche Bergbau-Museum in Zusammenarbeit mit den iranischen Institutionen das vorgeschichtliche Kupferabbaugebiet von Veshnaveh in Zentraliran untersucht. Dabei wurde in einer der Gruben für den Bergbau gänzlich untypische Funde entdeckt. Zu Tage kamen Keramikgefäße, Holzobjekte, Textilfragmente, Nahrungsreste und Schmuckartefakte aus Glas - v.a. Glasperlen -  Halbedelstein, Gold und anderen Metallen. Offenbar wurde das ehemalige Bergwerk über einen Zeitraum von etwa 1400 Jahren (von ca. 800 v. Chr. bis  8. Jh. n. Chr.) als ein Naturheiligtum genutzt.
Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den Kleinfunden dieser Grabung sowie der Deponierungspraxis und stellt für die Problematik der vorislamischen Religion in Iran, aber auch für das weltweit verbreitete Phänomen der Höhlenheiligtümer einen wichtigen Aspekt dar, auch kann sie einen wichtigen Beitrag in der Parther- und Sasanidenforschung leisten.

English: Within the programme „Ancient Mining and Metallurgy in West Central Iran“ the German Mining Museum examined prehistoric copper mines in the central mountains of Iran. The archaeological area is located between the cities of Ghom and Kashan, near the village of Veshnaveh, about 150 km South of Teheran. In five excavation and survey campaigns during the years 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005 the region was examined, while in 2003 small finds of the first three seasons were documented and processed at the Mirasfarhangi-je Ghom (Archaeological Insitute in Ghom). The intention of the archaeologists was to investigate the regional prehistoric copper supply, the technique that was used to extract the metal from the rock and how the copper was traded. Several mines were accessible in the mining district of Laghe Morad, Mazrayeh and Chale Ghar and they were systematically examined and documented. The utilisation phase of the whole mining area obviously lay between the early 3rd and late 2nd millennium BC.

However, much later non-mining activity was proved by revealing finds in two of the mines: In the mine called Ghale Ghar 1, the archaeologists unexpectedly came across an ensemble of objects that were obviously not related to the mining activity at all. That happened in the year 2001, during one of the first excavation campaigns. In mine 1, thousands of finds were found: ceramic vessels and sherds, wood and wooden vessels, remains of nuts, shell and baked goods, animal bones, one textile fragment, jewellery such as glass and stone beads and pendants, metal finger rings and ear rings, as well as one glass vessel and sheets of decorated metal.

Based on comparative studies and a stratigraphical analysis, this research study gives an outline of the chronology of the small finds that were excavated in the mines Chale Ghar 1 and 2. Most objects could be dated to Arsacid and Sasanian periods. An interpretation of the popular belief and the religious meaning of the site is on of the central points in the study.

Studies of trade routes across Southeast Asia in prehistory have hitherto focused largely on archaeological evidence from Mainland Southeast Asia, particularly the Thai Peninsula and Vietnam. The role of Indonesia and Island Southeast Asia in these networks has been poorly understood, owing to the paucity of evidence from this region. Recent research has begun to fill this void. New excavations at Sembiran and Pacung on the northern coast of Bali have produced new, direct AMS dates from burials, and analytical data from cultural materials including pottery, glass, bronze, gold andsemi-precious stone, as well as evidence of local bronze-casting. This suggests strong links with the Indian subcontinent and Mainland Southeast Asia from the late first millennium BC, some 200 years earlier than previously thought.

Sembiran and Pacung on the northern coast of Bali: a strategic crossroads for early trans-Asiatic exchange. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275020269_Sembiran_and_Pacung_on_the_northern_coast_of_Bali_a_strategic_crossroads_for_early_trans-Asiatic_exchange [accessed Apr 26, 2015].

Beads are important and often culturally diagnostic artifacts, although their full archaeological, chronological, and ethno-historical information potential may be difficult to unlock, at least in part because of spread through long-distance trade, possible longevity in use, and the visual similarity of many beads, particularly to the non-specialist. In contrast to the relatively extensive research on small Indo-Pacific beads, there has been little academic attention to other types of South and Southeast Asian glass beads from the first millennium CE. We report here on four such groups: Bird Star, dark blue or black drawn beads with a trailed design in white glass of a bird on one side and a star on the other; hexagonal bicone, usually translucent beads from two to five centimeters long; opaque monochrome beads, ranging from one to three centimeters in diameter; and Jatim, large and small polychrome beads named for their close association with east Java, or Jawa Timur. Although there is little archaeological or textual data for these beads, we find that compositional analyses, derived from LA-ICP-MS, SEM-EDS and EPMA measurements, can help answer such questions as what types of glass were used for their manufacture, and was it imported or locally produced; was the glass colored locally; who made the Jatim millefiori mosaic canes; and do the four types of glass beads represent four separate traditions? The answers to these questions help us to characterize potential beadmaking sites, and give us some insight into the technological choices made by the beadmakers themselves.

Fragmentary glass-working crucibles, drawn glass beads and ritual glass objects (aje ileke) from Ile-Ife, southwestern Nigeria, were analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS), electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The very unusual high-lime, high-alumina glass lining the crucibles matched the composition of the dark blue drawn beads and some of the blue and green glass fragments in the aje ileke. Similar crucible fragments, glass cullet and drawn glass beads were recovered during Frank Willett's excavations (1956-63) of two sites in Ile-Ife, and Claire Davison's unpublished chemical analyses from 1972 show the same high-lime, high alumina glass from Ita Yemoo, with radiocarbon dates from the eleventh to thirteenth century CE, and Orun Oba Ado, with radiocarbon dates from the eighth to twelfth century. Such high-lime, high-alumina glass has been found only in West Africa, including Igbo Ukwu in southern Nigeria, and is not known from Europe, the Middle East or Asia, ruling out the possibility that the glass was imported. We interpret these findings to propose the primary manufacture of high-lime, high-alumina glass in sub-Saharan Africa in the early second millennium CE, with production centred in southern Nigeria, and quite possibly in or near Ile-Ife. The results of our study, combined with those of Davison, provide the first strong evidence for early primary glass production in sub-Saharan Africa.

This article presents the results of recent analytical work (LA-ICP-MS) performed on fragments from two cage cups: a figural beaker found near the ancient town of Serdica, modern Sofia, and a beaker with an inscription found near Yambol. In a set of 12 fragments, the authors identify two different chemical compositions of colorless glass, three compositions of blue glass, and one composition each for green-blue and purple glass. The new data allow these scholars to investigate the relationship between the colorless main body and the colored external layers of the cage cup blanks, and provides hitherto unsuspected insights into the making of blanks. Two of the blue compositions are unrelated to the colorless base glass, but the other three colored compositions were probably produced by the addition of coloring materials to the colorless glasses of the blanks. This technological approach seems to be beneficial for securing adequate annealing and compatibility when different glasses are combined in a single blank and intended for further elaborate cold working.

New elemental data confirm the proposal by Ceglia et al. (2015) of two sub-groups of high iron, manganese and titanium glass, HIMTa and HIMTb, differing in their ratios Fe2O3/TiO2 and Fe2O3/Al2O3. Neodymium and strontium isotopes are consistent with southeastern Mediterranean coastal sand for both groups, allowing for an identifiable strontium contribution from the added manganese. Trace elements are consistent with an Egyptian origin, although a marked Eu anomaly in HIMTa is correlated with Ba, again added with manganese.  Strong within group correlations between manganese and iron oxides are not easily explained either as deliberate additions of manganese decolouriser or as a characteristic of the glassmaking sand. Instead, HIMT glass is considered to have been deliberately tinted yellow-green by the primary glassmakers to distinguish it from the green-blue glass of the Levant. The colour branding of the raw glass allowed glass workers to distinguish sodium-rich Egyptian HIMT glass from the more viscous, high working temperature Levantine glass, thereby offering savings in marginal costs, such as those relating to fuel.

The medieval port city of Sīrāf (ca. 800–1050 CE) on the north coast of the Persian/Arabian Gulf linked the core lands of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate with India, China, Africa, and beyond. 101 glass fragments recovered from the 1966–1973 excavations at Sīrāf and now at the Corning Museum of Glass were analysed using LA-ICPMS in order to explore the glassmaking raw materials and technology of the objects found within the city, as well as to address issues of the production and trade of glass during the Islamic period. The results indicate that the main groups of glass at Sīrāf likely date to the 9th–early 11th centuries and can be subdivided by the trace elements zirconium and chromium. Chemical matches with some likely Indian glass, and with glass finds from South and Southeast Asia, underline the pivotal role of the Gulf in the eastward movement of Islamic glass via the Indian Ocean trade network, as well as the influx of Indian glass into the Islamic world. Glass bangles and a small number of vessel fragments likely date to the late 11th century or later, and their chemical compositions indicate different production origins.

The Maritime Silk Road foregrounds the numerous networks that have been woven across oceanic geographies, tying world regions together often far more extensively than land-based routes. On the strength of the new data which has emerged in the last two decades in the form of archaeological findings, as well as new techniques such as GIS modeling, the authors collectively demonstrate the existence of a very early global maritime trade. From architecture to cuisine, and language to clothing, evidence points to early connections both within Asia and between Asia and other continents—well before European explorations of the Global South. The human stories presented here offer insights into both the extent and limits of this global exchange, showing how goods and people traveled vast distances, how they were embedded in regional networks, and how local cultures were shaped as a result.