Glass flow on the Dnipro River: An archaeometric study of glass beads from Scythian contexts on the island of Khortytsia (Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine)

This work considers a set of twenty-one glass beads/bead fragments found in two archaeological sites dating from the late 5^th to the early 4^th century BCE and located in the Khortytsia National Reserve in Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine). The beads have numerous analogues in the region, and some types have parallels in sites of different archaeological cultures also beyond this area. Their composition has been determined in order to address, from an archaeometric perspective, questions related to glass circulation during the Early Iron Age in the area of the Khortytsia island and beyond.

All of the glass found at Khortytsia belongs to the low-magnesia glass type (with two doubtful exceptions) and can be divided into two compositional groups, separated mainly by the TiO₂ concentration, both of which are consisted with the compositional framework already traced for Iron Age glass, with production centres placed in Egypt and the Levant. The data for the glass found at Khortytsia allowed an insight into the compositional similarities and differences within the bead types included in the sample set, indicating that the two glasses were used interchangeably for the same bead type and even within the same bead, suggesting the existence of secondary workshops, possibly close to consumption centres. Both types of glass were found at both the archaeological sites, namely the cemetery of Kanfarka and the hillfort of Sovutynske, confirming that they were used by the same people.

The glass considered here is more recent than the previously analysed glass from other archaeological sites possibly related to Khortytsia by geographical contingency, therefore the new set of compositional data obtained here expands the information available to trace the evolution of the glass in the area.