New insights into Byzantine glass technology from loose mosaic tesserae from Hierapolis (Turkey): PIXE/PIGE and EPMA analyses

This study focuses on the Byzantine glass tesserae from Hierapolis (Phrygia, central Turkey). Fifty-seven samples of loose tesserae from two sites in the town (the theatre and the church of St. Philip) are analysed by particule-induced X-ray emission and particule-induced gamma ray emission and electron probe X-ray microanalysis to obtain the chemical composition and identify the colourants and opacifiers. The aims are to add new information to the scant knowledge of the Byzantine glassmaking technology, to constrain the chronology of the mosaics and to trace the supply routes of the tesserae. In the destruction layers of the theatre, tesserae produced following the Roman glassmaking technology (natron glass opacified by calcium and lead antimonate) were found. They were made using a Levantine 1 raw glass, generally attributed to the early Byzantine period (fifth to sixth c.). In the church, the samples attest a technological change from Roman tradition, and a complex pattern according to building history (two phases are attested, probably in the sixth and eighth to ninth c.), and a multiplicity of supply. Three glass types and some recipes not attested before in this chronological range for the production of tesserae are documented, such as the use of a local low-chlorine natron glass for the production of black and red tesserae, the blue colouring by a source of cobalt with zinc in a natron glass tessera and the opacification with tin oxide (both in a lead-free and in a high-lead natron glass), as well as with quartz.     

The Swiss community in Genoa from the Old Regime to the late nineteenth century

Abstract

Drawing on extensive and original archival research, this article is the first to reconstruct the origins and historical development of the Swiss community of Genoa from the sixteenth to the late nineteenth century. During these four centuries, the Swiss were constant and significant agents of the Genoese economy and society. The Swiss presence in the city dates back to the mid 1500s, when Swiss soldiers were the predominant component of the army of the Republic. In the 1700s the Swiss community broadened its economic scope and varied its social configuration. It consisted of both a well-established Protestant, élite of merchant-bankers and textile entrepreneurs and a lower layer of craftsmen, confectioners, street vendors and servants. By the end of the 1700s the Swiss élite was such a thriving and well-integrated group that in 1799 Genoa was selected to be the seat of the first Swiss consulate of the Italian peninsula, the second in Europe after Bordeaux (1798). From the Restoration (1815) to Italian Unification (1861), the Swiss merchant-bankers and textile industrialists continued to be active promoters of the city's economic and trading system. In the decades after Unification (1861–80s), Swiss capital investments moved into new economic sectors (steam-shipping and maritime insurance) that contributed to the modernization of the Genoese and Italian merchant fleet. During the nineteenth century the Swiss community created its own social spaces and identity within the city – a church, a cemetery, a school, and a charitable foundation. As in many other northern Italian cities, the consolidation of the community's external image did not weaken the Swiss élite's integration with the local Genoese upper class.     

Establishing the Middle Sea: The Late Bronze Age of Mediterranean Europe (1700–900 BC)

Journal of Archaeological Research - The Late Bronze Age (1700–900 BC) represents an extremely dynamic period for Mediterranean Europe. Here, we provide a comparative survey of the...     

An early Iron Age assemblage of faience beads from Ashkelon,Israel: chemical composition and manufacturing process

The microstructure and chemical composition of eight faience beads from an early Iron Age (12th century BCE) assemblage found in the ancient city port of Ashkelon (Israel) are determined by means of FTIR spectrometry, pXRF, microRaman and SEM-EDS analysis. The results are compared with published data of Egyptian and Near Eastern artifacts. Each sample exhibits a hue which is obtained by adding a specific colorant to the glazing mixture. A new gray chalcopyrite-manganese-based colorant was identified. Cementation glazing was most likely used in the manufacturing process of the specimens analyzed, except for the blue bead, which is an Egyptian blue frit. The results suggest that these objects represent a unique assemblage, quite different from contemporary Egyptian and Near Eastern materials, and provide new information regarding the Iron Age faience evidence in the southern Levant.     

“Solidarity is our weapon”: Social Mobilisation in Scotland in the Contest of the Post‐Political Condition

The consensual climate of the post‐political order has been recently disrupted in Europe. The mass protests staged in different European countries and the resurgences of the extreme parties in response to the multiple European crises witness the “cracks” in consensual politics. While much of the scholarly attention has been drawn onto the socio‐political implications of large‐scale upraises, the contribution of bottom‐up sub‐national groups to the “return of the political” has been under‐researched. Therefore, this article focuses on sub‐national grassroots groups as instances of the “properly political” (Swyngedouw 2009, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33[3]:601–620). It is contended that these groups, by putting in place acts of solidarity, are “agonistic” political forms, containing in nuce the potential to counteract the post‐political order and to shape a new politics. To interrogate this argument, the article reports the findings of a case study analysis involving four grassroots groups based in Scotland.     

The composition of colourless glass: a review

A total of 1496 investigated colourless glass analyses have been collected with the aim of achieving a clear geographical, typological, chronological and compositional overview on this particular type of glass. Based on manganese and antimony contents, four main groups were characterised: naturally colourless, Mn-decoloured, Sb-decoloured and Mn/Sb-decoloured. Main achievements relates to the chronological distribution of manganese and antimony technologies, the former being associated to a long lasting technology which culminated during the Late Antique period while the latter being practically absent after the 8^th century AD, being at its acme during the Roman imperial period. Except for naturally colourless glass, glass-making technology mostly implied the use of impure sands and natron, relegating the other components to a virtually irrelevant ?presence?, except during the  Late Antique and Medieval periods.     

An ethnoarchaeological study of cooking installations in rural Uzbekistan: development of a new method for identification of fuel sources

Mud constructed cooking installations such as ovens and hearths are common in modern, pre-modern and archaeological domestic contexts in West and Central Asia. Archaeological cooking installations are primarily identified using analogy of shape and size to ethnographic installations. The study presented here establishes direct evidence to the use of fire within mud constructed cooking installations, thus providing means for reducing ambiguity in identification of archaeological cooking installations. In addition, we present here a newly developed method that enables a clear-cut distinction between wood and dung ashes used as fuel materials in many modern and archaeological domestic contexts. The study is based on an ethnoarchaeological research in rural households at the Republic of Uzbekistan that was followed by geoarchaeological analyses of installation walls, wood ash, dung ash and wood and dung standards collected in the study area. Field work included ethnographic observations, interviews with informants and temperature measurements during cooking experiments. We show that changes in the clay mineral structure due to exposure to high temperatures on the interior walls of cooking installations can be detected using FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared) spectroscopy, providing for the first time direct evidence to the use of fire within such installations. We demonstrate that the temperature recorded by clay alteration on installation walls as well as in the ashes left on installation bottoms does not correspond to baking or cooking temperatures. We also show that the newly developed method, based on the ratio of wood ash pseudomorphs to dung spherulites, separates between wood and dung ashes with very high certainty. Yet, we identify a range of values where differentiation between wood and dung ashes is uncertain, and suggest it results from intensive mixing processes. Lastly, we show that phytolith morphotype analysis is an insufficient tool, if used alone, for distinguishing wood from dung ashes in the study area. The newly developed tools for temperature estimation within mud constructed installations and for fuel origin determination contribute to better understanding of cooking-related practices, and can be applied to archaeological contexts worldwide.