Bronze Age vitreous materials from Central Italy: A first insight through an interdisciplinary and multi analytical approach

Abstract

An interdisciplinary and multi-analytical approach − combining non-invasive and non-destructive with micro-destructive techniques − has been applied, for the first time, to glass artifacts from Central Italy dating from the Middle Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. This research provides the unique and extraordinary opportunity to investigate glass materials shedding light on ancient glassmaking techniques and tracing the trade networks that shaped the distribution of these artifacts across Central Italy.

The non-invasive and non-destructive techniques (i.e. p-XRF, FORS and XRD) provided a preliminary characterisation of all the analysed samples that was used to further identify and select a considerably reduced number of artefacts to be investigated by micro destructive ones (i.e. SEM-EDS and EMPA). The combination of all these techniques allowed to identify two main glass types. The majority of the samples display the chemical composition of LMHK glass (one of which High-K) with several characteristics comparable to those from Northern Italian production centres. One sample displays instead a composition typical of natron glasses, with similarities to glass artifacts produced in the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. Two main types of chromophores play a role in the origin of the blue colour, Cu and Co. Sb was used to impart both the opacity and the white coloration.

The findings of this work suggests that this archaeological site was included in an international framework of long-distance trade and confirm the importance of the Paduli archaeological site in Central Italy at the end of the II millennium B.C. Here, phenomena of social complexity seem to have emerged with the presence of nascent local elites capable of inserting themselves into the network of international traffic.