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New insights into the trade and processing of mineral raw materials for glass making - Free ebook at OAPEN Library (www.oapen.org).This book presents a reconstruction of the Hellenistic-Roman glass industry from the point of view of raw material procurement. Within the ERC funded ARCHGLASS project, the authors of this work developed new geochemical techniques to provenance primary glass making. They investigated both production and consumer sites of glass, and identified suitable mineral resources for glass making through geological prospecting. Because the source of the raw materials used in the manufacturing of natron glass can be determined, new insights in the trade of this material are revealed. While eastern Mediterranean glass factories were active throughout the Hellenistic to early Islamic period, western Mediterranean and possibly Italian and North African sources also supplied the Mediterranean world with raw glass in early Roman times. By combining archaeological and scientific data, the authors develop new interdisciplinary techniques for an innovative archaeological interpretation of glass trade in the Hellenistic-Roman world, highlighting the development of glass as an economic material.ContributorsAnnelore Blomme (KU Leuven), Sara Boyen (KU Leuven), Dieter Brems (KU Leuven), Florence Cattin (Université de Bourgogne), Mike Carremans (KU Leuven), Veerle Devulder (KU Leuven, UGent), Thomas Fenn (Yale University), Monica Ganio (Northwestern University), Johan Honings (KU Leuven), Rebecca Scott (KU Leuven)

Glass beads, both beautiful and portable, have been produced and traded globally for thousands of years. Modern archaeologists study these artifacts through sophisticated methods that analyze the glass composition, a process which can be utilized to trace bead usage through time and across regions. This book publishes open-access compositional data obtained from laser ablation ¿ inductively coupled plasma ¿ mass spectrometry, from a single analytical laboratory, providing a uniquely comparative data set. The geographic range includes studies of beads produced in Europe and traded widely across North America and beads from South and Southeast Asia traded around the Indian Ocean and beyond. The contributors provide new insight on the timing of interregional interactions, technologies of bead production and patterns of trade and exchange, using glass beads as a window to the past.This volume will be a key reference for glass researchers, archaeologists, and any scholars interested in material culture and exchange; it provides a wide range of case studies in the investigation and interpretation of glass bead composition, production and exchange since ancient times.Laure Dussubieux is a senior research scientist and manages the Elemental Analysis Facility of The Field Museum in Chicago.Heather Walder is a research associate of The Field Museum and an assistant teaching professor at the University of Wisconsin ¿ La Crosse. She co-directs Gete Anishinaabeg Izhichigewin, a community-based Indigenous archaeology project in Red Cliff, Wisconsin.