From sand to sea: tracing the production and trade in glass beads from the 10th-century Cirebon shipwreck in the Java Sea

Abstract

Around the year 970 CE, a merchant ship carrying an assortment of goods from East Africa, Persia, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and China foundered and sank to the bottom of the Java Sea. Thousands of beads made from many different materials—ceramic, jet, coral, banded stone, lapis lazuli, rock crystal, sapphire, ruby, garnet, pearl, gold, and glass—attest to the long-distance movement and trade of these small and often precious objects throughout the Indian Ocean world. The beads made of glass are of particular interest, as closely-dated examples are very rare and there is some debate as to where glass beads were being made and traded during this period of time. This paper examines 18 glass beads from the Cirebon shipwreck that are now in the collection of Qatar Museums, using a comparative typological and chemical perspective within the context of the 10th-century glass production. Although it remains uncertain where some of the beads were made, the composition of the glass beads points to two major production origins for the glass itself: West Asia and South Asia.