A glass of its own: Early Islamic glass in its context
Résumé
Scientific methods for analyzing archaeological glass have improved considerably over the last 20 odd years, making it now possible to address questions of the transformation of the glass industry, linked to political, economic or climatic changes, as well as technological innovations. The centralized glassmaking model established under the Roman Empire was gradually replaced by new regional productions towards the end of the first millennium CE. The period after the Arab conquest of the eastern Mediterranean in the 7th century saw profound changes in the organization of the glass industry and distribution patterns, and new recipes based on the use of soda-rich plant ash emerged around the turn of the 9th century. In this talk, I will discuss several case studies including early Islamic glass weights from Egypt, the mosaic decoration of the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the glass finds from Abbasid Samarra to illustrate the mechanisms of these transformations and how they vary from region to region.