Glass ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck: Glass by the batch in the Late Bronze Age

James Lankton , Cemal Pulak , Bernard Gratuze (1)

1 IRAMAT-CEB - IRAMAT - Centre Ernest Babelon

The glass ingots from the Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck (ca. 1300 BCE) provide crucial insight into Late Bronze Age glass production and exchange in the Mediterranean. Almost all of the approximately 200 glass ingots on board the ship were sampled as well as five of the 30 Mycenaean glass relief beads. Here we report the full chemical compositional results for these samples, along with 49 strontium isotope analyses representing at least 48 separate glass ingots. We include as well 355 unpublished analyses of Late Bronze Age Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Levantine, and Aegean glasses; these represent a total of 222 different objects since many of the core-formed vessel fragments are polychrome and each color was analysed separately. The results suggest that the Uluburun glass ingots were produced in as few as 28 discrete production events or batches. The largest batch included at least 16 ingots representing 40 kg of glass with a chemical composition as perfectly uniform as could be determined by our LA-ICP-MS analyses. Cluster analysis and comparison of Ti/Cr and Li/Zr ratios indicate that all of the ingots are Egyptian glass. In addition, based on this new dataset we have identified the first Egyptian glasses to be found at Mesopotamian sites as well as several examples of Mesopotamian glass used to produce Egyptian objects. The Mycenaean glass relief beads on board the ship were also produced with Egyptian glass, although in this case more similar to glass from Amarna than to the Uluburun ingots. These results, coupled with our finding that glass almost identical to ingots found on the ship was used to produce several of the unprovenanced Mycenaean relief beads from museum collections, presents a picture of overall technological continuity combined with geographic flexibility at the end of the Amarna Period in Egypt.Glass ingots from Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck all made from Egyptian glass. •Cluster Analysis and trace-element ratios to identify geographic source. •Ingots of high-quality glass produced in chemically identical batches. •Evidence for significant amounts of Mesopotamian glass in Amarna, Egypt, workshops. •First report of Egyptian glass at Mesopotamian sites although quantities limited.

Mots clés: Glass primary production; Late Bronze Age; Uluburun; Glass ingots; LA-ICP-MS; Sr isotope ratios; Cluster analysis

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Histoire; Art et histoire de l'art; Archéologie et Préhistoire

James Lankton, Cemal Pulak, Bernard Gratuze. Glass ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck: Glass by the batch in the Late Bronze Age. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2022, 42, pp.103354. ⟨10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103354⟩. ⟨hal-03598302⟩