XRF analysis of glass beads from the Mycenaean palace of Nestor at Pylos,Peloponnesus, Greece: new insight into the LBA glass trade

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Mycenaean glass among archaeologists and scientists. Scholars have traditionally thought that all Mycenaean glass was imported either in finished form or as ingots and simply shaped or worked at the Mycenaean sites. Chemical studies of other Mycenaean glass (50 and 43) support the hypothesis that glass was imported into Mycenaean Greece, but there is also indication for glass production in mainland Greece at the palace of Thebes (Nikita and Henderson, 2006). There is no evidence for glass making or working at the Palace of Pylos, yet there is an abundance of glass beads there. The aim of this paper is to identify the technology and source for the glass of these beads and thus to ascertain how Pylos was connected to the broader Mycenaean and Mediterranean economies. The composition of the glasses was determined by means of portable XRF analysis and compared to that of other Late Bronze Age glasses from Egypt, Mesopotamia and mainland Greece. Four blue beads coloured with cobalt and one blue bead coloured with copper have Ti and Zr compositions consistent with an Egyptian origin of manufacture while five other beads show Ti and Zr concentrations consistent with a Mesopotamian origin (Shortland et al., 2007). Based on the dearth of Egyptian and Mesopotamian imports in Pylos, the presented data support the hypothesis that Pylos was receiving via internal Greek trade routes foreign-produced glass, which may have been worked abroad or in Greece.