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RECYCLING ROMAN GLASS TO GLAZE PARTHIAN POTTERY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2020

Jonathan R. Wood  and
Yi-Ting Hsu
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Abstract

Alkaline glazes were first used on clay-based ceramics in Mesopotamia around 1500 B.C., at the same time as the appearance of glass vessels. The Roman Empire used lead-based glazes, with alkaline natron glass being used only to produce objects of glass. Chemical analysis has had some success determining compositional groups for Roman/Byzantine/early Islamic glasses because of the discovery of major production sites. Parthian and Sasanian glass and glazed wares, however, have been found only in consumption assemblages, which have failed to inform on how they were made. Here we reanalyse compositional data for Parthian and Sasanian glazes and present new analyses for Parthian glazed pottery excavated at the early third century A.D. Roman military outpost of Ain Sinu in northern Iraq. We show that some Parthian glazes are from a different tradition to typical Mesopotamian glazes and have compositions similar to Roman glass. We propose that Roman glass was recycled by Parthian potters, thereby suggesting that as yet undiscovered Mesopotamian glass production centres ordinarily supplied glass for indigenous glazed pottery. Furthermore, if recycling glass to make glazed pottery was extended to indigenous glassware, this may provide an explanation for the paucity of Parthian and Sasanian glass in the archaeological record.

Keywords

Roman frontierParthian and Sasanian glazesRoman glassRecycleAin Sinu
Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 82 , December 2020 , pp. 259 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2020

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