Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 22 (2018) 492
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep
Introduction to the special issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science (reports) entitled: Glass
reflections: Creation and transformation of glass in Eastern Mediterranean
Glass, a unique material, appeared around four and a half thousand
years ago. It was the last pyrotechnological material invented by hu-
mankind and appeared long after both pottery and metal. The un-
iqueness of this material is derived from its special properties such as
transparency, translucency, opacity, its wide range of colours, reflec-
tiveness, and plasticity at high temperatures. All these properties, over
the millennia, were controlled by specialist craftsmen, giving them the
ability to create an infinite number of objects with a wide variety of
forms, decorations and colours, using a complex range of production
and decorative techniques, highlighting the artistic and functional
nature of glass.
The study of ancient glass has a history of almost 200 years. Glass
studies, before the mid-20th century, were focused mainly on metho-
dological criteria for the identification and understanding of a little-
understood material based mainly on typology and chronology. Since
the 1950s the use of scientific techniques has been more and more
frequent, and this area of research has been advanced especially over
the last two decades. In recent years, the study of ancient glass, using
modern laboratory equipment and new methodological approaches, has
generated great interest by providing important information about past
societies.
The main focus of current research on glass is its provenance, pro-
duction and trade, bringing together archaeological and scientific evi-
dence, especially during the last fifteen years. This is reflected in the
combination of archaeological and archaeometric studies, especially
the application of scientific procedures to solve archaeological pro-
blems. Apart from the identification and mapping of object types, ar-
chaeological investigations have been also aimed at locating ancient
glass-making sites and at reconstructing models for the economic sys-
tems in which glass production and trade occurred. Many of these
studies have focused on Egyptian and Near Eastern sites dating back to
the period when we are able to detect the earliest evidence for glass
production (16th–11th century BC) during which the first vessels were
made. Research has also been carried out on Hellenistic and Roman
glass, both in the south-eastern Mediterranean region and in
Continental Europe. Glass was considered a prestigious material from
the Late Bronze Age until the mid-Hellenistic era (and later) and it
therefore signified social status and social differentiation.
Very little research has been published using scientific techniques
focused on glass from the intervening period between the Late Bronze
⁎
Corresponding author.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.10.004
Available online 11 October 2018
2352-409X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
T
Age and early Roman period and the study of ancient glassmaking
during the 1st Millennium BC, one of the highest technological ex-
pressions of the ancient world, is still in an early phase. Our incomplete
knowledge about glass technology of this period makes it difficult to
reconstruct the role that glass played in the economy and technology.
This Special Issue addresses key topics associated with technological
aspects and the distribution of glass in the 1st Millennium BC. The aim
of publishing this volume is to provide an international forum of re-
levant and up to date archaeological and analytical data. The Special
Issue is aimed at answering key questions relating to archaeology and
archaeological technology, provenance and recycling, changes in glass
technology and in production methods over time. Furthermore, special
attention is drawn to the political, social and economic changes that
affected glass production and distribution during the 1st Millennium
BC.
The Special Issue consists of eight papers which were presented at
an International Workshop which took place in September 2016 at the
Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, UK. This
Workshop strongly encouraged international interdisciplinary and
academic discourse generating a discussion panel about the technology
of ancient materials and their impact on ancient societies. Thus, there
are studies on archaic glass from Rhodes, new insights into working
glass in Ptolemaic Egypt, the use of isotopes to fingerprint glass raw
materials, experimental glass colouration, Hellenistic glass from
Demetrias (Thessaly), from Epirus (northern Greece), from Staré
Hradisko (Czech Republic) and Late Hellenistic and early Roman glass
from the House of Orpheus, Paphos (Cyprus).
This Special Issue and the Workshop would have been impossible
without the financial support of the Marie Curie Actions, Intra-
European Fellowships (IEF), Project number: 623645, FP7-PEOPLE-
2013-IEF (P.I. J. Henderson) and the School Strategic Fund, kindly of-
fered by the School of Humanities, Nottingham University; all sources
of funding are gratefully acknowledged.
Artemios Oikonomoua, , Julian Hendersonb
⁎
a
IEF - Post Doctoral Marie Curie Researcher 2014–16, United Kingdom
b
Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
E-mail addresses: artemios.oikonomou@gmail.com,
artemios.oikonomou@nottingham.ac.uk (A. Oikonomou),