The Mediterranean Glass Trade

Apparently, there was a good glass trade network between various cities in the Mediterranean. Glass finds can be found in many different places, ranging from Athens to the town of Butrint in Albania and Bubastis in Egypt, as well as many other locations.

 

At times, the compounds used to de-colour the glass is different, but the types of objects are generally the same, and there seems to be an overall similar taste throughout the region.

 

 

(Schibille 2011, 2939)

Comparing Assemblages

Looking at a single site or a small sample makes it harder to say anything about the use of glass in the past. It is therefore  interesting to compare assemblages from different places. When looking at glass colours, we have already noticed that the glass assemblages from Athens and Butrint were similar. Colourless glass was further discoloured with the same chemical in both places. A different method for discolouring glass comes from Bubastis, Egypt. This can indicate that the glass from Egypt came from a different production centre than the ones from Athens and Butrint.

 

Glass colours were similar in these three places, with varying shades of green and colourless glasses making up the bulk of the samples.  Throughout the Mediterranean, it is clear that over time the presence of glass decreases, not only in Athens. However, in textual sources from the same region, we have an abundance of evidence.

Overview of the Colour Distributions at both Athens and Bubastis

 

Here we see an overview of the colours used in Athens (Greece) and Bubastis (Egypt). While the graph of Bubastis does not show the type of objects matched to the colours, but we do get a clear overview of  what colours are present. Whereas in Athens the majority of glass objects were green or blue, in Bubastis the colourless and colourless-lg (light green) categories are extremely large compared to the other colours. This means that a specific effort was made here to have a lot of (almost) colourless glass.

 

(source: graphs by Everts, information courtesey of Weinberg and Stein 2009; Rosenow and Rehren 2014).