Joanna Then-Obłuska
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 197204 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Joanna Then-Obłuska |
| NOMBRES | Joanna |
| APELLIDO | Then-Obłuska |
| FIRMA | THEN-OBŁUSKA J |
| AFILIACIONES | Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4690-0069 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 29 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 65 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 29 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2015 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Chemical Composition and Provenance of Bead Glass From Medieval and Postmedieval Ethiopia
The central and eastern regions of medieval Ethiopia were characterized by intensive transcultural connections, as evidenced by the presence of imported glass bead artifacts. An assemblage of over 18,800 beads and their fragments, currently in the Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa, has been studied during the SolZag Project. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 133 glass beads from eight sites of the local and Islamic cultures…
Beads of Alexandria
Written sources indicate that Alexandria in Egypt was a leading producer of Roman glass. Furthermore, archaeological finds have provided evidence for the local production of drawn glass and gold‐in‐glass beads, which were distributed throughout the world. In this study, we present an analysis of the chemical composition of more than two hundred glass objects from the Roman (2nd–3rd/4th century ce ) and Late Antique (4th/5th–7th century ce ) glass…
A mysterious burial from the Kerma Culture (second millennium BC) in the Bayuda Desert of Sudan
During work carried out in the Bayuda Desert in Sudan at the site of BP937 in 2018 the grave of a man was discovered. The grave was classified as belonging to the Kerma Culture and dated to the early phase of the Old Kush II period (c. 2050–1750 BC). In addition to faience beads, the grave goods consisted of two clay vessels. One was placed standing upright, while the other was placed upside down. This may constitute an element of the funeral rit…
Tracing the origins of Carnelian ornaments in Northeast Africa
Morphological, technological and chemical compositional analyses of carnelian beads and raw materials from two sites in ancient Sudan are presented. Six carnelian beads are from Banganarti, a Christian pilgrimage center of the Makuria Kingdom (9th -14th centuries) and 18 beads and two carnelian flake fragments are from Old Dongola, capital of the Kingdom of Dongola (14th-18th centuries). Bead shapes show considerable variation, but bead perforati…
Four millennia of garnet trade in Northeast Africa—chemical analysis of ancient and Late Antiquity beads from Lower Nubian sites
Raman spectroscopy and laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry were used to characterize the chemical composition of 34 red garnet beads from Lower Nubian sites, dated between about 3200 BCE and 600 CE. All beads from the A‐Group to the Meroitic period feature a similar calcium‐poor almandine composition (69%–78% almandine, 15%–22% pyrope, 2%–6% grossular, 3%–9% spessartine), which differs from other calcium‐poor almandine gar…
Adornment deposits
Next to pottery, items of adornment comprise the most abundant material excavated in Northeast Africa, often being the only evidence for long-distance interactions. Interdisciplinary research has been developed to demonstrate that beads, particularly those of Indian origin from port sites on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, may attest to intense relations between North Africa and Asia. Parallels and provenance examination of recent bead and jewellery …
Teardrops at the Lake
International expeditions extensively excavated Lower Nubia (between the First and Second Nile Cataracts) before it was submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser and Lake Nubia. The expeditions concentrated on monumental architecture and cemeteries, including sites at Qustul and Serra East, where the New Kingdom, and Napatan, Meroitic, Nobadian, and Makurian-period elites and common people were buried, ca. 1400 BC–AD 1400. Although the finds abou…
Islamic glass in the Christian Kingdom of Alwa
Excavations at Soba, the capital of Alwa, between 2019 and 2022 yielded more than 30 glass fragments in addition to a glass cosmetic bottle. An analysis of 30 glass samples has identified glass belonging to a number of compositional groups. The majority of fragments were made of plant ash‐soda glass produced in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq) between the 9th and 10th centuries, and in the Eastern Mediterranean (Levant and Egypt) between the mid‐10th…
Beads from a mediaeval pilgrim centre
Christian Nubia was a region with intensive transcultural connections that are visible through the understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 20 glass beads from Banganarti, a Christian pilgrim site active during the Makuria kingdom (mid‐sixth to 14th centuries CE). Compositional analyses using laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) have identified glass…
Overseas imports on the Blue Nile
Archaeological evidence as well as textual sources leave no doubt about Alwa's (Alodia's) intense transcultural connections, further corroborated by understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents results of an analysis of 23 glass beads from Soba, the most prosperous capital of medieval Nubia. Compositional analyses using laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) have identified glass belon…
Imported ornaments of a Late Antiquity community in Christian Ethiopia
Several thousand glass beads excavated in the Maryam Anza (Tigray, Ethiopia) cemetery over three seasons between 2014 and 2016 tell the story of the direct or indirect long-distance contacts of the people buried there. By combining typological and quantitative studies of drawn glass beads, this paper provides new bead evidence on the subject of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade in Late Antiquity. The assemblage is dominated by tiny monochrome gl…
Western Connections of Northeast Africa
Outstanding garnet beads were found recently in an elite tumulus dated to the fourth century AD and located at the cemetery of Hagar el‐Beida in the Upper Nubian Nile Valley region. Whereas contacts of Northeast Africa with South Asia have just been proven through analysis of glass beads found in Nubia and dating to the time of intensive Indian Ocean trade, scientific evidence for Nubia's link with the regions to the west was lacking. Laser ablat…
Beads for the nomads of late antiquity
The mobility of the Blemmyes between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast, and their skill in trading, are well attested in the literary sources and in the archaeological record. While they operated mainly in the Eastern Desert, their cemeteries, dated to the mid‐fourth century ce , were located in the strategic region of the Dodekaschoinos of Lower Nubia. The personal adornments of the Blemmyes are mainly composed of beads, but the glass import…
Gereif Est et le Méroïtique méridional
International audience
Personal Ornaments in Prehistory
This brilliant book emphasizes how and why the human relationship with ornaments developed and continued over tens of thousands of years from the hunter-gatherer life to urban elites, from the use of natural resources to complex technologies.It is based on evidence from archaeological sites across Turkey, the Near East, Greece, the Balkans, and beyond.Chapter 2, Personal ornaments: why are they important in prehistory?, underscores the usefulness…
Roman to Islamic Beads and Pendants from Matmar and Mostagedda, Middle Egypt
Between 1927 and 1931, British archaeologists Guy Brunton and his wife Winifred recorded over 150 graves assumed to date from Late Dynastic to early Islamic times in the cemeteries of Matmar and Mostagedda, Middle Egypt. Sixty-four bead objects found in funerary context are now located in six museum collections. Recent studies of material found in these tombs and the radiocarbon dating of textile samples allowed for a revision of Brunton’s initia…
Glass beads and pendants from Meroitic and Nobadian Lower Nubia, Sudan
This paper presents a detailed elemental analysis of 64 glass beads and pendants dated to the Meroitic period (first–third centuries ad ) and the Nobadian period (fourth–sixth centuries) from burial sites in the Lower Nubian Nile Valley region. Laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) was used to determine the chemical composition of the glass and to gain knowledge about its origin. Four main glass types were identi…
Early Makuria Research Project. Royal ornaments of the Late Antique African kingdom, Early Makuria, Nubia (AD 450–550)
After the fall of the Meroe kingdom, three entities – Nobadia, Early Makuria, and Alwa (Alodia) – emerged in northeast Africa between the 4th and the 6th centuries AD. Richly furnished elite cemeteries with tombs of the Nobadian kings are known from Qustul and Ballaña in Lower Nubia (Emery and Kirwan 1938), but until now no royal tombs of Early Makuria have been identified. A comparative analysis of some recently excavated adornments and ornament…
Between the Nile and the Ocean. The bead assemblage from the Eastern Desert (4th–6th centuries AD)
More than 200 beads and pendants were found in seven trash middens excavated at the 4th/5th to the 6th century AD settlement site in Shenshef in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The site lies close to the Sudanese border and the Red Sea coast, and about 20 km to the southwest of the ancient port of Berenike. Although the purpose of the settlement has not been established, excavations provided a wide range of imports from the Mediterranean region and …
Early Makuria Research Project. Beads and pendants from Tanqasitumulus cemetery, Nubia, Sudan (Season 2018)
An assemblage of 1687 beads and pendants was recovered from the excavation of five tumuli: 16, 23, 46, 52, 179) in the cemetery of Tanqasi in Sudan. The assemblage is dominated by faience beads (n=920). The remaining beads and pendants are made of glass (n=422), stone (n=241), ostrich eggshell (n=102), and metal-in-glass (n=2). Morphological estimation based on material, technique of manufacture and shape provides a preliminary overview of types …
Beads and pendants in the late Harbor Temple and the harbor temenos of the Red Sea port of Berenike (seasons 2010–2013)
More than 250 beads and pendants have been registered from the Harbor Temple and its surroundings, the so-called “harbor temenos”, in the Red Sea port of Berenike. The Harbor Temple assemblage is dominated by South Asian glass beads dating from the 4th through early 6th centuries AD, but the bead finds from the presumed temenos show much greater variety in both type and date, the latter spanning the centuries from the 1st to the 5th century AD. R…
Beads and pendants from the Hellenistic to Early Byzantine Red Sea port of Berenike, Egypt, Season 2014 and 2015
Almost 650 beads and pendants, most of them of glass and faience, were excavated over two seasons in 2014 and 2015 at Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. This material, coming from 19 trenches variously located within the Hellenistic to early Byzantine site, has contributed some new data, enhancing the Berenike bead typology. Highlights included a Bes pendant of glass from a Hellenistic context and early Roman mosaic glass beads with face pat…
Beyond the Nubian Gold
More than 2,300 beads and pendants were excavated from 16 graves at the Berber Meroitic cemetery (BMC) during the 2009-2013 seasons. The site lies between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts, some 150 km north of the kingdom’s capital, Meroe. The cemetery has been dated to between the 2nd century BC and the 3rd century AD. Next to some ostrich-eggshell, stone, and silver beads and pendants, faience, glass, and metal-in-glass dominate the bead assemblag…
Meroitic beadwork
The paper provides a preliminary overview of beads and pendants found on Saï Island at two Meroitic cemeteries, 8-B-5.A and 8-B-52.B. In the Meroitic period, strings of beads and pendants were an easily discerned motif in royal and private iconography, as well as in the arts and crafts, pottery included. The Saï bead and pendant assemblage is characterized by a variety of materials, techniques, and shapes that contribute significantly to a compar…
Trade and faith in Nubian Early Makuria (AD 450–550)
In the long history of the land between the Third and Fourth Cataracts on the Nile, the period corresponding to the times of Early Makuria is particularly well represented. The el-Zuma tumuli cemetery has been dated to the Early Makuria Phase II (AD 450–550). Although the graves were heavily robbed, the remains of personal adornments (beads, pendants, rings, and an earring) give a broad overview of materials (marine mollusk shell, coral, ostrich …
Glass bead trade in the Early Roman and Mamluk Quseir ports — A view from the Oriental Institute Museum assemblage
Glass beads and pendants from Meroitic and Nobadian Lower Nubia, Sudan
This paper presents a detailed elemental analysis of 64 glass beads and pendants dated to the Meroitic period (first–third centuries ad ) and the Nobadian period (fourth–sixth centuries) from burial sites in the Lower Nubian Nile Valley region. Laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) was used to determine the chemical composition of the glass and to gain knowledge about its origin. Four main glass types were identi…
Beads for the nomads of late antiquity
The mobility of the Blemmyes between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast, and their skill in trading, are well attested in the literary sources and in the archaeological record. While they operated mainly in the Eastern Desert, their cemeteries, dated to the mid‐fourth century ce , were located in the strategic region of the Dodekaschoinos of Lower Nubia. The personal adornments of the Blemmyes are mainly composed of beads, but the glass import…
Teardrops at the Lake
International expeditions extensively excavated Lower Nubia (between the First and Second Nile Cataracts) before it was submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser and Lake Nubia. The expeditions concentrated on monumental architecture and cemeteries, including sites at Qustul and Serra East, where the New Kingdom, and Napatan, Meroitic, Nobadian, and Makurian-period elites and common people were buried, ca. 1400 BC–AD 1400. Although the finds abou…
Overseas imports on the Blue Nile
Archaeological evidence as well as textual sources leave no doubt about Alwa's (Alodia's) intense transcultural connections, further corroborated by understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents results of an analysis of 23 glass beads from Soba, the most prosperous capital of medieval Nubia. Compositional analyses using laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) have identified glass belon…
Beads from a mediaeval pilgrim centre
Christian Nubia was a region with intensive transcultural connections that are visible through the understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 20 glass beads from Banganarti, a Christian pilgrim site active during the Makuria kingdom (mid‐sixth to 14th centuries CE). Compositional analyses using laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) have identified glass…
Imported ornaments of a Late Antiquity community in Christian Ethiopia
Several thousand glass beads excavated in the Maryam Anza (Tigray, Ethiopia) cemetery over three seasons between 2014 and 2016 tell the story of the direct or indirect long-distance contacts of the people buried there. By combining typological and quantitative studies of drawn glass beads, this paper provides new bead evidence on the subject of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade in Late Antiquity. The assemblage is dominated by tiny monochrome gl…
Western Connections of Northeast Africa
Outstanding garnet beads were found recently in an elite tumulus dated to the fourth century AD and located at the cemetery of Hagar el‐Beida in the Upper Nubian Nile Valley region. Whereas contacts of Northeast Africa with South Asia have just been proven through analysis of glass beads found in Nubia and dating to the time of intensive Indian Ocean trade, scientific evidence for Nubia's link with the regions to the west was lacking. Laser ablat…
Four millennia of garnet trade in Northeast Africa—chemical analysis of ancient and Late Antiquity beads from Lower Nubian sites
Raman spectroscopy and laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry were used to characterize the chemical composition of 34 red garnet beads from Lower Nubian sites, dated between about 3200 BCE and 600 CE. All beads from the A‐Group to the Meroitic period feature a similar calcium‐poor almandine composition (69%–78% almandine, 15%–22% pyrope, 2%–6% grossular, 3%–9% spessartine), which differs from other calcium‐poor almandine gar…
Islamic glass in the Christian Kingdom of Alwa
Excavations at Soba, the capital of Alwa, between 2019 and 2022 yielded more than 30 glass fragments in addition to a glass cosmetic bottle. An analysis of 30 glass samples has identified glass belonging to a number of compositional groups. The majority of fragments were made of plant ash‐soda glass produced in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq) between the 9th and 10th centuries, and in the Eastern Mediterranean (Levant and Egypt) between the mid‐10th…
Beads of Alexandria
Written sources indicate that Alexandria in Egypt was a leading producer of Roman glass. Furthermore, archaeological finds have provided evidence for the local production of drawn glass and gold‐in‐glass beads, which were distributed throughout the world. In this study, we present an analysis of the chemical composition of more than two hundred glass objects from the Roman (2nd–3rd/4th century ce ) and Late Antique (4th/5th–7th century ce ) glass…
Adornment deposits
Next to pottery, items of adornment comprise the most abundant material excavated in Northeast Africa, often being the only evidence for long-distance interactions. Interdisciplinary research has been developed to demonstrate that beads, particularly those of Indian origin from port sites on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, may attest to intense relations between North Africa and Asia. Parallels and provenance examination of recent bead and jewellery …
Beads and Pendants from Sedeinga, Nubia
Excavations conducted during the 2009-2014 seasons at the burial site of Sedeinga, Nubia, produced 3,400 beads and pendants of various materials which date to the Late Napatan and Meroitic periods, ca. 400 B.C.-A.D. 300. The chronological, geographical, and political situation of the site made the bead assemblage exceptionally rich in organic and inorganic materials as well as the technologies used to make the objects. During a period dominated b…
Cross-cultural bead encounters at the Red Sea port site of Berenike, Egypt. preliminary assessment (seasons 2009–2012)
A macroscopic analysis of the bead and pendant assemblage from Berenike (excavated in seasons 2009–2012) provides not only a preliminary bead typology and chronology, but contributes to the study of the multicultural character of the Red Sea port of Berenike from the Ptolemaic through the early Byzantine period. The presence of diverse marine and terrestrial organics, semiprecious stones and manmade materials used in crafting beads indicates a su…
Beads and Pendants from the Tumuli Cemeteries at Wadi Qitna and Kalabsha-South, Nubia
More than 500 beads and pendants were excavated by a Czechoslovakian team in the early 1960s at two sites in Lower Nubia. The beads were associated with 40 tumuli in the Wadi Qitna cemetery and two tumuli in the Kalabsha-South cemetery. These 4th-century cemeteries are related to the Blemmyes, the Eastern Desert dwellers whose pottery has been commonly recognized in the region between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast at a time of intensive o…
Glass bead trade in the Early Roman and Mamluk Quseir ports — A view from the Oriental Institute Museum assemblage
Meroitic beadwork
The paper provides a preliminary overview of beads and pendants found on Saï Island at two Meroitic cemeteries, 8-B-5.A and 8-B-52.B. In the Meroitic period, strings of beads and pendants were an easily discerned motif in royal and private iconography, as well as in the arts and crafts, pottery included. The Saï bead and pendant assemblage is characterized by a variety of materials, techniques, and shapes that contribute significantly to a compar…
Trade and faith in Nubian Early Makuria (AD 450–550)
In the long history of the land between the Third and Fourth Cataracts on the Nile, the period corresponding to the times of Early Makuria is particularly well represented. The el-Zuma tumuli cemetery has been dated to the Early Makuria Phase II (AD 450–550). Although the graves were heavily robbed, the remains of personal adornments (beads, pendants, rings, and an earring) give a broad overview of materials (marine mollusk shell, coral, ostrich …
Early Makuria Research Project. Royal ornaments of the Late Antique African kingdom, Early Makuria, Nubia (AD 450–550)
After the fall of the Meroe kingdom, three entities – Nobadia, Early Makuria, and Alwa (Alodia) – emerged in northeast Africa between the 4th and the 6th centuries AD. Richly furnished elite cemeteries with tombs of the Nobadian kings are known from Qustul and Ballaña in Lower Nubia (Emery and Kirwan 1938), but until now no royal tombs of Early Makuria have been identified. A comparative analysis of some recently excavated adornments and ornament…
Between the Nile and the Ocean. The bead assemblage from the Eastern Desert (4th–6th centuries AD)
More than 200 beads and pendants were found in seven trash middens excavated at the 4th/5th to the 6th century AD settlement site in Shenshef in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The site lies close to the Sudanese border and the Red Sea coast, and about 20 km to the southwest of the ancient port of Berenike. Although the purpose of the settlement has not been established, excavations provided a wide range of imports from the Mediterranean region and …
Early Makuria Research Project. Beads and pendants from Tanqasitumulus cemetery, Nubia, Sudan (Season 2018)
An assemblage of 1687 beads and pendants was recovered from the excavation of five tumuli: 16, 23, 46, 52, 179) in the cemetery of Tanqasi in Sudan. The assemblage is dominated by faience beads (n=920). The remaining beads and pendants are made of glass (n=422), stone (n=241), ostrich eggshell (n=102), and metal-in-glass (n=2). Morphological estimation based on material, technique of manufacture and shape provides a preliminary overview of types …
Beads and pendants in the late Harbor Temple and the harbor temenos of the Red Sea port of Berenike (seasons 2010–2013)
More than 250 beads and pendants have been registered from the Harbor Temple and its surroundings, the so-called “harbor temenos”, in the Red Sea port of Berenike. The Harbor Temple assemblage is dominated by South Asian glass beads dating from the 4th through early 6th centuries AD, but the bead finds from the presumed temenos show much greater variety in both type and date, the latter spanning the centuries from the 1st to the 5th century AD. R…
Beads and pendants from the Hellenistic to Early Byzantine Red Sea port of Berenike, Egypt, Season 2014 and 2015
Almost 650 beads and pendants, most of them of glass and faience, were excavated over two seasons in 2014 and 2015 at Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. This material, coming from 19 trenches variously located within the Hellenistic to early Byzantine site, has contributed some new data, enhancing the Berenike bead typology. Highlights included a Bes pendant of glass from a Hellenistic context and early Roman mosaic glass beads with face pat…
Beyond the Nubian Gold
More than 2,300 beads and pendants were excavated from 16 graves at the Berber Meroitic cemetery (BMC) during the 2009-2013 seasons. The site lies between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts, some 150 km north of the kingdom’s capital, Meroe. The cemetery has been dated to between the 2nd century BC and the 3rd century AD. Next to some ostrich-eggshell, stone, and silver beads and pendants, faience, glass, and metal-in-glass dominate the bead assemblag…
Roman to Islamic Beads and Pendants from Matmar and Mostagedda, Middle Egypt
Between 1927 and 1931, British archaeologists Guy Brunton and his wife Winifred recorded over 150 graves assumed to date from Late Dynastic to early Islamic times in the cemeteries of Matmar and Mostagedda, Middle Egypt. Sixty-four bead objects found in funerary context are now located in six museum collections. Recent studies of material found in these tombs and the radiocarbon dating of textile samples allowed for a revision of Brunton’s initia…
Glass beads and pendants from Meroitic and Nobadian Lower Nubia, Sudan
This paper presents a detailed elemental analysis of 64 glass beads and pendants dated to the Meroitic period (first–third centuries ad ) and the Nobadian period (fourth–sixth centuries) from burial sites in the Lower Nubian Nile Valley region. Laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) was used to determine the chemical composition of the glass and to gain knowledge about its origin. Four main glass types were identi…
Gereif Est et le Méroïtique méridional
International audience
Personal Ornaments in Prehistory
This brilliant book emphasizes how and why the human relationship with ornaments developed and continued over tens of thousands of years from the hunter-gatherer life to urban elites, from the use of natural resources to complex technologies.It is based on evidence from archaeological sites across Turkey, the Near East, Greece, the Balkans, and beyond.Chapter 2, Personal ornaments: why are they important in prehistory?, underscores the usefulness…
Western Connections of Northeast Africa
Outstanding garnet beads were found recently in an elite tumulus dated to the fourth century AD and located at the cemetery of Hagar el‐Beida in the Upper Nubian Nile Valley region. Whereas contacts of Northeast Africa with South Asia have just been proven through analysis of glass beads found in Nubia and dating to the time of intensive Indian Ocean trade, scientific evidence for Nubia's link with the regions to the west was lacking. Laser ablat…
Beads for the nomads of late antiquity
The mobility of the Blemmyes between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast, and their skill in trading, are well attested in the literary sources and in the archaeological record. While they operated mainly in the Eastern Desert, their cemeteries, dated to the mid‐fourth century ce , were located in the strategic region of the Dodekaschoinos of Lower Nubia. The personal adornments of the Blemmyes are mainly composed of beads, but the glass import…
Imported ornaments of a Late Antiquity community in Christian Ethiopia
Several thousand glass beads excavated in the Maryam Anza (Tigray, Ethiopia) cemetery over three seasons between 2014 and 2016 tell the story of the direct or indirect long-distance contacts of the people buried there. By combining typological and quantitative studies of drawn glass beads, this paper provides new bead evidence on the subject of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade in Late Antiquity. The assemblage is dominated by tiny monochrome gl…
Teardrops at the Lake
International expeditions extensively excavated Lower Nubia (between the First and Second Nile Cataracts) before it was submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser and Lake Nubia. The expeditions concentrated on monumental architecture and cemeteries, including sites at Qustul and Serra East, where the New Kingdom, and Napatan, Meroitic, Nobadian, and Makurian-period elites and common people were buried, ca. 1400 BC–AD 1400. Although the finds abou…
Islamic glass in the Christian Kingdom of Alwa
Excavations at Soba, the capital of Alwa, between 2019 and 2022 yielded more than 30 glass fragments in addition to a glass cosmetic bottle. An analysis of 30 glass samples has identified glass belonging to a number of compositional groups. The majority of fragments were made of plant ash‐soda glass produced in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq) between the 9th and 10th centuries, and in the Eastern Mediterranean (Levant and Egypt) between the mid‐10th…
Beads from a mediaeval pilgrim centre
Christian Nubia was a region with intensive transcultural connections that are visible through the understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 20 glass beads from Banganarti, a Christian pilgrim site active during the Makuria kingdom (mid‐sixth to 14th centuries CE). Compositional analyses using laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) have identified glass…
Overseas imports on the Blue Nile
Archaeological evidence as well as textual sources leave no doubt about Alwa's (Alodia's) intense transcultural connections, further corroborated by understudied overseas glass bead imports found there. This paper presents results of an analysis of 23 glass beads from Soba, the most prosperous capital of medieval Nubia. Compositional analyses using laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) have identified glass belon…
Four millennia of garnet trade in Northeast Africa—chemical analysis of ancient and Late Antiquity beads from Lower Nubian sites
Raman spectroscopy and laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry were used to characterize the chemical composition of 34 red garnet beads from Lower Nubian sites, dated between about 3200 BCE and 600 CE. All beads from the A‐Group to the Meroitic period feature a similar calcium‐poor almandine composition (69%–78% almandine, 15%–22% pyrope, 2%–6% grossular, 3%–9% spessartine), which differs from other calcium‐poor almandine gar…
Adornment deposits
Next to pottery, items of adornment comprise the most abundant material excavated in Northeast Africa, often being the only evidence for long-distance interactions. Interdisciplinary research has been developed to demonstrate that beads, particularly those of Indian origin from port sites on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, may attest to intense relations between North Africa and Asia. Parallels and provenance examination of recent bead and jewellery …
Archaeology (22 obras) · History (20 obras) · Ancient history (19 obras) · Bead (18 obras) · Geography (17 obras) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (16 obras) · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology (13 obras) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (11 obras) · Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis (11 obras) · Geology (11 obras)