Opening a new window onto medieval glass trade and technology

Project Information

WINDOWGLASSMED

Grant agreement ID: 895153

DOI

10.3030/895153

Project closed

EC signature date 26 March 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 30 October 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 271 732,80

EU contribution

€ 271 732,80

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WINDOWGLASSMED (Opening a new window onto medieval glass trade and technology)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2023-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project wants to a new window onto trade and contact in Early Medieval western Europe, applying multidisciplinary research methods to well-dated samples of glass to investigate its production, trade, and recycling from the 7th to the 10th centuries AD. While the chemical and isotopic analysis of glass is already used as a proxy for questions of trade and contact, the data currently available for this period are sporadic, with many samples coming from poorly-dated archaeological contexts. The Early Medieval period witnesses a major compositional transition from the use of natron to plant ashes in its manufacture, but the timing of this technological change – and its relationship with Early Medieval recycling practice – needs a better temporal resolution than is currently available.
Archaeological contexts period are paired with cutting-edge scientific analysis, allowing the first detailed mapping of the changing production technologies of glass in this period, the trade routes followed by different glass ‘recipes’, and the social and economic factors influencing practices such as recycling.
Concerning the overall objectives of the The WINDOWGLASSMED, three were pursued during the fellowship period:
1. Scientific analyses – trace element analysis (with LA-ICP-MS at the Field Museum, Chicago - USA; British Geological Survey, Keyworth – UK) and isotopic analysis (BGS – Keyworth, UK) of well-dated vessel fragments from Western Europe.
2. Creation of a database of scientific results plotted against archaeological data and geographical coordinates for the samples and assemblages in question.
3. Research of major Early Medieval trading sites, glass imports, trade routes, and exchange networks in the selected Western European areas.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The WINDOWGLASSMED project fostered several collaborations for each of the macro-areas included for the project:
• Soren Sindbaek (Aarhus University) and Lene Feveile (Ribe Vikingcentre) for the site of Ribe, Denmark.
• Professor Skre (Oslo University and Kulturhistorisk Museum - Oslo) for the site of Kaupang (Norway).
• Dr Ulriksen (Museum Sydøstdanmark) for the site of Vester Egesborg (Denmark).
• Dr Morìn de Pablos (Department of Cultural Heritage Resources of AUDEMA, Madrid) for the site of Los Hitos, (Spain).
• David Govantes-Edwards (Universidad de Córdoba) for the site of Tarragona, (Spain).
• Professor Olmo Enciso (University of Alcalá) and David Govantes-Edwards (Universidad de Córdoba) for the site of Reccopolis (Spain).
• Dr Silvestri and Dr Marcante (University of Padova) for the site of Aquileia, Brescia, Grado, Monselice, Monte Barro, and Vicenza (Italy).
• Professor Chavarria (University of Padova) the site of Battistero of Padova Duomo, Italy.
• Ministry of Cultural Heritage- Soprintendenza del Molise (https://sabapmolise.cultura.gov.it/) for the site of San Vincenco al Volturno, Italy.
• Professor Bianchi (University of Siena) for the site of Vetricella (Italy).
LA-ICP-MS analysis has been carried out on 399 samples during two secondment periods in Chicago, Fields Museum (USA) in collaboration with Dr Dussubieux; the second period took place in Keyworth, Nottingham (UK) at British Geological Society collaboration with Dr Chenery at Keyworth, BGS (UK).
A NERC grant (10.500£) has been secured to perform isotopic analysis (Sr, Nd, and Hf) on twenty samples in collaboration with Dr Ian Millar (BGS, Keyworth). Analysis will be carried out in early 2024.
An R environment suitable for glass data analysis has been created and exploited for data analysis.
A database for EM Western glass and available comparison data paired with Geochemical data has been created and will be published on the Archaeology Data Service (https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/) after the publication of the articles.
The framework behind of the WINDOWGLASSMED project has been discussed during the proceedings of “Le forme del vetro. Tecnologie a confronto. Produzioni vitree e invetriate in Sicilia, Italia peninsulare e al-Andalus tra IX e XII secolo” (https://www.efrome.it/en/research/news-and-events/news/le-forme-del-vetro-tecnologie-a-confronto-produzioni-vitree-e-invetriate-in-sicilia-italia-peninsulare-e-al-andalus-tra-ix-e-xii-secolo). As a result, an article is currently in publication at the time of this report and it will be soon available in the Mélanges de l'École française de Rome - Moyen Âge (MEFRM) (https://www.efrome.it/en/publications/les-melanges).
Four articles are in currently preparation as a result of the WINDOWGLASSMED project. For each macro production area (Italy, Spain, and Scandinavia) chemical results will be presented and discussed in order to highlight production, recycling and trade patterns for Western European glass. The last publication will be focusing only on the isotopic data results (Sr, Nd, Hf) to assess the provenance of Western European glass, refine production patterns and trade route suggestions.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

As a result of the WINDOGLASSMED project, not only the trace elements and isotopic data available for Early Medieval Western glass production increased substantially, but with the publication of its data it will allow to discover new glass chemical trends patterns of production and recycling associated to their archaeological contexts for each of the macro areas involved (Italy, Spain, and Scandinavia).
The creation of the database of chemical and archaeological data focused entirely on vessel glass will allow us to finally trace not only the diffusion of specific chemical compositions on a much broader scale than before, but also the impact of glass production trends such as recycling and mixing.
Sr, Nd, and Hf isotopic data on Spanish, Scandinavian and Italian glass are in progress. Since there is no Sr or Nd isotopic data published so far for the Early Medieval period for both Spain and Italy and very limited for Scandinavia (Barfod et al., 2022), this will allow for the first time to make some substantial hypotheses on where Early Medieval glass found in Western Europe was produced by identifying the potential area of primary production.
Hf isotopes is a very recent development of glass provenance research: Hf isotopic signature has been demonstrated to be an effective provenance marker when compared with Sr and Nd signatures (Barfod et al., 2022, 2020). This method has been applied for the firsts time on Spanish and Italian Early Medieval glass. The data acquired will also be tied in with the existing knowledge on trade routes in order to trace back the potential exchange routes and network where raw glass and cullet were traded along to Western Europe.
The publication of the WINDOGLASSMED dataset in the Archaeology Data Service (https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/) will allow the results of this project to be available open access to both academics and the public for consultation and future academic research.

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