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rum. Then, with proper export permits, we took the small samples to the Corning Museum of Glass for chemical analysis . After completion of the analyses, remains of the samples were returned to Bodrum. There were four reasons for doing these chemical analyses . First, chemical analysis is a part of the characterization of many kinds of archaeological artifacts, but especially of those made of a material that is known to have had historical and geographic variations in chemical composition. This is certainly the case with ancient glasses. Second, we wanted to learn if all the glass found on the wreck was more likely made in a single factory or in different factories. Third, we wanted to see how the compositions of the Serçe Limanı glasses compare to those of other analyzed glasses. Finally, the most ambitious hope was that the chemical compositions would indicate, or at least suggest, where the Serçe Limanı glasses had been made—by comparing them to those of roughly contemporaneous glasses and looking for compositional patterns that might be related to geography. It is only fair to warn the reader at the outset not to set expectations too high. At present we do not have at our disposal a library of chemical analyses of medieval glasses that is representative of all the regions of potential interest. We have few analyses of glasses with known places of manufacture, or even of glasses excavated at known sites. At present, very few medieval Islamic factories have been located. For the moment, therefore, we can make only a few tentative and rather broad suggestions. One looks forward to the day when analyses of INTRODUCT ION Since 1960 the Corning Museum of Glass has collaborated with Professor George Bass on scientific investigations of glass and certain other artifacts recovered during his excavations . As part of this collaboration, chemical analyses of 103 small samples removed from fragments of glass from the Serçe Limanı shipwreck have been conducted. The importance of the glass is clear. It appears to represent, for the most part, the well-dated production, over a limited interval of time, of a single workshop—or small group of closely related workshops. In addition, the finds provide vivid evidence of the duality of the ancient glass industry, that is to say, the separation of the engineering and crafting stages of the manufacture of glass wares. The recovery of large chunks of raw glass cullet on the wreck illustrates that glass was sometimes—perhaps routinely—prepared as a material in one location and then transported over considerable distances to be resoftened and fashioned into objects at workshops elsewhere , closer it would seem, to its intended markets. Moreover , the discovery of so much broken glass illustrates that early glassmakers took advantage of the benefits of saving energy by recycling. This follows from Bass’s belief—based on archaeological reasoning—that the glass had already been broken before being loaded onto the ship. I removed samples from the Serçe Limanı collection for analysis in 1977 and 1981, with the parent fragments recorded by photographs. The fragments themselves were left in Bod- # C H A P T E R 43 Chemical Analyses Robert H. Brill With a contribution by Dean V. Neubauer 460 part xiiI: the chemistry of the glass cluded. Unfortunately, most of the samples are not well dated, having been assembled somewhat randomly over a period of more than forty years. Although they are not a comprehensive representation of Islamic glass, either geographically or chronologically, they provide the only current picture of the chemical compositions of Islamic glass that can be used as a background against which to view the Serçe Limanı glass analyses. Almost all the Islamic glasses we have analyzed fall into one or the other of two distinct chemical types. Both types are soda:lime:silica glasses (Na2 O:CaO:SiO2 ). These two types seem to define two fundamental traditions of ancient glassmaking , although that may someday prove to be an oversimplification . Both traditions involve soda:lime glasses. One type was made with natron (a naturally occurring form of soda, coming most notably from Egypt), the other with what appears to have been soda obtained by burning certain varieties of littoral or desert plants. The vast majority of ancient and medieval glasses made around the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East belong to one of these two fundamental chemical types. By the time the Serçe Limanı glasses were made, both traditions were many centuries old. The...

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